Academic textbook publishers now frequently offer web-based
services to accompany the digital versions of their textbooks. It is common
practice for publishers’ sales representatives to excite individual faculty
with the features of their digital books and services. All too often this is
done without consulting local campus I/T or distance education departments in
order to understand whether they can support faculty using these services.
In some cases, these offerings are merely links to the
publishers’ web sites with additional information such as videos, interactive
demonstrations, or additional readings. Such links can be added to your
Blackboard courses, seamlessly connecting your students to the additional
content.
In other cases, the services may include one or more of the
following:
- Full
hosting of the lesson content on the publisher’s web site
- Graded
activities and exams
- Other
interactive features that are hosted on the publisher’s web site that
appeal to faculty for grading or participation credit
- In a
few cases beyond that, the entire course’s content (including quizzes and
exams) is stored on the book publisher’s learning management system, and
not on UHCL’s Blackboard.
It is important to remember that use of these services
results in course-based data stored off-campus at a publisher site; use of
these services must be consistent with UHCL policies on student support, data
retention and data security.
NOTE: In May, 2007, Dr. Bendeck distributed via email
a statement from UH Legal regarding the use of publisher materials:
Faculty members can adopt epacks from the publisher. However,
the grade books housed in the publishers serves cannot be used.
All pertinent student data needs to be housed internally and
can’t be transmitted to third party vendors unless a) the third party vendor
signs a contract with the university guaranteeing security of the data for FERPA
reasons or b) the student gives explicit authorization to have information
transferred via written permission.
Please keep this statement in mind when evaluating publisher
building blocks for use in your Blackboard courses at UHCL.
In many cases you and your students could mistakenly assume
that all activity is occurring on UHCL’s Blackboard, when it is not. Evaluation
grades and student activity records are often stored on the book publisher’s
servers. For example, if you as an instructor should receive any type of
concern from a student regarding the taking of a test or access to course
content on the publisher’s server, UHCL cannot provide you with records of the
student’s activity on the publisher’s server. Any technical issues that may
occur on the publisher’s servers cannot be resolved by UHCL support staff.
Individual publishers and their learning management systems
may provide a means to synchronize student data on their servers with your
course on UHCL’s Blackboard server. These synchronizations, however, require
building blocks to be installed and configured on UHCL’s multiple Blackboard
servers. Introducing these building blocks into UHCL’s development, test,
train, and production Blackboard environments requires time and testing to
ensure stability.
If you are considering adoption of a digital textbook with
extended publisher’s services for use in UHCL’s Blackboard, please contact your designated instructional designer or the Support Center, well in advance of adopting the textbook. University
Computing & Telecommunications (UCT) will assist in evaluating the
publisher’s services and advise you of any support issues that could limit our
ability to support you and your students in using a publisher’s services.
Adapted with permission from James Stewart, Director,
Center for Distance Education, The University of Texas at Arlington.
