Students’ and Instructor’s Perspective on the use of Blackboard Platform for Delivering an Engineering Course

Abstract

The use of Information Technology (IT) has been growing over the years in various human endeavours. It has also been adopted in education sector for teaching and learning. Various studies have been conducted to assess the effectiveness and acceptance of e-learning strategy by students. In particular, the current research is an attempt to obtain students’ and instructor’s perspective on the use of Blackboard software. The technology is a course management system used in a blended learning mode to deliver a third year mechanical engineering course at the University of Botswana (UB). In terms of students’ views, the study covered a period of nine years and the questionnaire survey was administered to each succeeding cohort of students. Whereas in terms of the instructor’s perspective the motivation and the challenges faced during the years of use of the platform were described. Results indicate that students were generally comfortable with the use of Blackboard as they highly embraced it. Students indicate that their performance improved and communication with instructor was enhanced significantly. The respondents also recommended that Blackboard should be used in other courses in their programme of study. The instructor considered the time factor the most vital challenge related to the use of the platform. However, despite the challenges the application of the learning platform and the development of its material was a positive experience for the instructor and well received by the students.