Educational Technology Services (ETS) introduced bSpace, a new online collaboration and learning environment, to the campus this academic year. Many instructors have already made the switch from Blackboard to bSpace to support and enhance their course learning activities, communicate online with their students, and provide an online space for students to collaborate.

ETS is committed to making bSpace the right tool to support the diverse teaching and learning activities that take place here at UC Berkeley. We have worked closely with instructors and students in order to analyze and better understand their needs, and determine the viability of moving to bSpace as the sole collaboration and learning environment for the campus. Based on our analysis, we have decided to extend our transition to bSpace, while continuing to offer Blackboard to the small number of instructors who have designed their course activities to take advantage of features currently only available in Blackboard. We expect this transition to be complete by Fall 2007. ETS is continuing to improve bSpace. Enhancements for the Fall 2006 semester, based on feedback from our current users, will include a new discussion forum, improved gradebook functionality, a more feature-rich wiki, better integration with campus data, and usability improvements.

Making the switch to bSpace is easy! You can do it whenever you like by simply logging in to http://bspace.berkeley.edu with your CalNet ID and Passphrase and getting started.

The ETS Training and Support team looks forward to working with you through this transition. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions at via our bSpace Support and Feedback From.

Additional Resources:

• bSpace - http://bspace.berkeley.edu
• Training & Support Center - http://ets.berkeley.edu/TrainingSupportCenter/bspace
• Transition Timeline - http://ets.berkeley.edu/LearningSystems/bspace/