How did the introduction of Blackboard fit into City of Sunderlands curriculum strategy?
IT: When City of Sunderland College was formed in 1996 by the merger of two medium-sized FE Colleges it established a commitment to give its full-time students a 30 hours per week curriculum entitlement. To support this, the College implemented a resource-based learning strategy for course delivery which involved major investment in learning centres and ILT. The introduction of Blackboard in 2001 was an extension of this strategy, as it allowed greater access to learning resources for students. CE: How did you encourage and support tutors to introduce Blackboard into their courses? IT: This has been managed via a number of different strategies. Firstly, a number of teaching staff were given time on their timetable to develop Blackboard course sites for their curriculum areas. This was funded out of the Standards Fund. Secondly, in 2002 we established an e-Learning team consisting of 2.5 posts to support staff in the development of the use of Blackboard. Thirdly, in July September 2003
