It should come as no surprise that the home of Mozart is also home to one of Europe’s leading educational institutions. The University of Salzburg, or Paris Lodron University after its founder, the Prince Archbishop Paris Lodron, is located in the Austrian city of Salzburg. Originally founded in 1622, and then reestablished in 1962, the university is the largest educational institution in the Salzburg region with over 11,000 students and 1,600 employees in research, teaching and administration.

Even with a history going back almost 400 years, the University of Salzburg is primarily focused on the modernization of teaching and providing flexible learning opportunities. With this in mind, the University of Salzburg launched its first ever “Flexible Learning Initiative” in 2001 to inculcate “lifelong learning” amongst its students. At the core of this initiative was the need to deploy a learning management system (LMS) to supplement classroom education and bring consistency, reliability and convenience of use to both students and faculty.

Although Salzburg already had a sophisticated programmed for UNIGIS, a postgraduate distance-learning study programmed for Geoinformatics and a number of home-grown websites for other courses, the university needed to integrate 4 schools (Theology, Law, Natural Science, Arts and Humanities), 81 study programmers and 34 training courses into a standardized solution.

The Need for High-Quality Content

In designing a system to meet the needs of students, the University acknowledged that most of its pupils had commitments outside of the university and needed a tool that would help them better manage their time. Students required a system that would prepare them for online class sessions, assist them with assignments, keep them abreast of course-specific events and enable them to engage in an active social network.

However the staff had different concerns. They were apprehensive at first about whether the system would be able to meet their requirements and ease their workload. They wanted a system that would facilitate student registration, help assemble course content, schedule facilities, process grade reports and manage technical resources whilst also taking into account students’ needs.

After a rigorous evaluation of available options, Salzburg selected the Blackboard Academic Suite™ as its e-Learning enterprise software application. At the core of this Blackboard solution is the Blackboard Learning System™, an open, flexible platform centered on enhancing student achievement. In implementing this solution, the university set an initial target of reaching between 40 and 50% of all teaching staff and students.

Student-Centered Learning

Blackboard began with a “bottom-up-model” to determine the requirements of both students and faculty and customize a solution to meet their needs. As a first step, Blackboard held a series of seminars with staff and students. During these constructive meetings, a strategy was devised to integrate Salzburg’s four schools and setup an online community-building tool. The implementation team organized training sessions and conferences for academic staff to teach them how to use the Blackboard system.

The faculty’s initial hesitation slowly faded after their first hand experience of working with the Blackboard system online. They learned how to conduct classes online and how they could use the system to reduce their workload. “Initially my worry was how staff members would react to the change in teaching tactics and the introduction of technology,” says Rudolf Mosler, Vice Rector of Education. “But to my surprise they showed enthusiasm in embracing new ways of teaching.” Today, all new teaching staff must undergo mandatory advanced training on Blackboard introduction courses.

Blackboard’s content management and collaboration features enable instructors to easily create and integrate content into the curriculum, share content with colleagues and find learning objects created by others. “One of the biggest challenges faced by long distance education is the difficulty in carrying out a stimulating teacher-class discussion,” says one instructor. “But we have witnessed that students are able to express their viewpoints more confidently on a Blackboard Discussion Board than in a traditional classroom.” Richard Posch, Technical Coordinator eLearning, University of Salzburg, adds, “With Blackboard software, any student with an Internet connection can now attend tutorials and seminars, access reference material, and submit assignments online.”

Flexible Learning Opportunities

Having achieved its initial target, Salzburg University is working to fully ensure that most teachers and students adopt the system. This second phase should conclude in 2008 with a goal of reaching a greater part of the “late majority” (up to 75%) of the university’s teachers and students. “Our plan is to map the entire university onto the Blackboard system and exploit all its features to reap maximum benefits,” says Mosler.

“Our aim is to equip teachers to use Blackboard software individually and determine what learning outcomes they want to achieve and how effective they are in doing so,” says Martin Mader, Head of Public Relations for ZFL.

While there is still room for further development, it’s clear that by offering flexible learning opportunities for its students, the University of Salzburg is emerging as a leading in the field of blended learning. In fact, the university was recently awarded the MEDIDA PRIX, an award given to universities that combine digital media and progressive didactics in innovative ways.