Blackboard would like to express sincere gratitude to everyone who invested time, expertise and creativity into BbWorld^{® ’}07 in Boston this past summer. Your participation made the global event the most successful gathering of the Blackboard user community to date.

Nearly 2,500 people attended the conference, including 1,940 users of Blackboard^® solutions from over 800 institutions and companies, and 240 partners. The spirit of our industry’s most enthusiastic community of practice was on full display during the 200+ sessions, within the exhibit hall and across the Blackboard client appreciation party.

Assembling a global community of practice of this size entails work that Blackboard staff members take very seriously, especially since this users conference marked the first global event for former WebCT clients to interact with their Blackboard peers, and 45% of attendees came from WebCT institutions. Brian Morgan, assistant professor of Integrated Science and Technology at Marshall University, described his experience:

This was my first conference since the merger [of WebCT and Blackboard], and I can honestly say that the WebCT folks really felt part of the Blackboard team. We don’t have to say we’re WebCT anymore. It’s not WebCT versus Blackboard, either. We are Blackboard now.

Other important highlights from the conference include:

• Global Perspective: 240 attendees from 26 countries traveled to Boston for the event
• Multifaceted Community of Practice: Complementing the groups of International and Higher Education attendees, more than 200 K-12 education and 50 ProEd clients attended
• Engaged Audience: More than 450 clients attended the four Blackboard Listening Sessions and contributed the kind of valuable and actionable feedback that helps us better meet your needs
• Important Product Announcements: During President and CEO Michael Chasen’s keynote address, Peter Segall and he introduced SafeAssign™, Blackboard’s new plagiarism detection service, and Application Pack 2 for Vista 4 and CE 6, a highly important release that will increase our client support efforts significantly—feedback on both announcements has been extremely enthusiastic
• Blackboard Developers Conference: The first “DevCon” held in conjunction with BbWorld included 250 clients, 55 Blackboard staff members, five tracks, 46 sessions and two keynotes; 75% of DevCon attendees attended both conferences (DevCon next year will occur in Las Vegas, immediately before BbWorld ’08)
• Client Appreciation Party: The party had something for everyone—games, pool playing, face-fainting, great food and drinks, and of course dancing (over 400 clients danced with us and some won great prizes like an iPhone and DVD player)

What really stood out at BbWorld this year was the level of engagement by Blackboard users. All week long conference attendees connected with each other; contributed insightful thoughts; shared candid feedback with us; and took away innovative, actionable ideas. Thank you again to all the participants who, together, made BbWorld ’07 our industry’s most successful e-Learning conference.

We hope to see you at our next global users conference: BbWorld ’08 will be held at the Venetian Resort Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, from July 15–18, 2008, with the pre-conference workshops and Developers Conference occurring July 14–15.