Instructors' Resources

About Blackboard

Blackboard (http://www.blackboard.com) is a leading e-Education infrastructure company. Founded in 1997, Blackboard has always maintained one clear vision:
To transform the Internet into a powerful environment for teaching and learning

Blackboard develops, licenses, and supports enterprise software platforms for bringing the educational experience online. Whether supplementing traditional brick and mortar education, or enabling online distance learning, Blackboard solutions power many of the Internet's most successful e-Education sites for courses, campus communities and student commerce.

Blackboard's Products and Services
The Blackboard software platform has quickly evolved into a leading enterprise 'operating system' for bringing education online because of its open architecture that allows for interoperability and integration with outside applications. Blackboard's products include:

Blackboard 5: Learning System
An enterprise grade, comprehensive e-Learning software platform encompassing a course management system with an advanced architecture that allows for integration with back office systems. The Blackboard 5 Learning System offers faculty flexible and intuitive tools to incorporate technology into teaching and learning - including content management, discussion boards, online assessments, chat and gradebook functionality. With Blackboard, faculty can post syllabi, multimedia files, course documents, and other materials which are available to students anytime, anywhere.

Blackboard 5: Community and Portal System
Enables an enterprise information portal for academic institutions to serve their various constituencies - students, faculty, alumni, administrators and others - with a personalized, single log-in portal for accessing all of the academic and administrative Web services the institution has put in place. The Blackboard 5: Community and Portal System aggregates Web services from the Blackboard 5: Learning System, Blackboard 5 Transaction System, as well as other heterogeneous homegrown and commercial applications an institution may manage. The end result is a Web portal providing convenient and cost effective integration between the teaching and learning environment, student activities and other institutional services, such as the bursar's office, library, bookstore, or athletics department.

Blackboard 5: Transaction System
Offers clients a full range of commerce and access models, including e-debit processing, web deposits, point-of-sale commerce, off campus commerce with local merchants, account management, student identification and more.

More than 1,400 institutions are now running Blackboard Course & Portal Solutions.

Blackboard Inc.
Corporate Headquarters
1899 L Street, NW, 5th Floor
Washington DC, 20036
202-463-4863