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Manchester goes mobile!

06 Oct 2010

Access to Blackboard 9 courses on a wide range of devices

Manchester is the first University in the UK to deploy Blackboard Mobile Learn and Mobile Central. Mobile Learn will allow staff and students to access their Blackboard 9 (BB9) courses on a wide range of mobile devices, from iPads to smartphones. With Blackboard Mobile Learn, students will be able to access course content; contribute to discussion boards and blogs; contact their classmates and tutors; review assignments, grades and feedback; and much more.

Mobile Learn is available for use with courses in BB9 and will become progressively more widely available as the roll-out of BB9 is completed. Staff and students can download the Blackboard-branded app from the appropriate app stores (e.g. iTunes, BlackBerry App World, Android Market).

In addition, we are about to launch the Mobile Central service that will provide mobile users with a range of interactive information services. Initially, this app will provide users with access to campus maps, news and staff directory. Did you ever need to find your way to a building on campus or locate the nearest computer cluster? Well, now there's an app for that! And as Mobile Central evolves, additional campus information and service apps will be released.

These services will roll-out in the next few weeks with more to follow. Professor Colin Stirling, Vice-President for Teaching and Learning, said, “Almost all of us now use mobile devices to access information and services in ways that we might never have imagined but which have quickly become second nature. The University of Manchester is leading the way in mobile technologies here in the UK and will continue to deliver innovative services designed to enhance the student experience and to allow students, staff and visitors easy access to information, news and services. Such systems are only ever as good as the content they provide and so we will be listening to users in order to refine and enhance these services”.

For further information on Blackboard Mobile, contact: