Use this page to help you plan for the technical aspects of phasing out Collaborate Original in 2020.
Specific dates for your region on Behind the Blackboard
If you would like assistance with the planning and change management efforts, our consulting services team can work with you to guide you through the planning efforts, identify training needs, and create a customized approach for your institution. Learn more by reviewing our Consulting Services Catalog or contacting your Account Representative.
Follow this page to get email updates when we update it.
Current usage in Collaborate Original
The first step is to pull usage reports to determine your top users, number of sessions, and quantity of recordings.
Review the data and consider your institution’s approach creating user accounts, scheduling sessions, managing recordings, and preparing courses for an upcoming semester. Instructors and other stand alone Collaborate Administrators/Supervisors may take a more significant role in the transition process, if your institution has a decentralized approach and a large number of users, sessions, and recordings.”
More information about reports
Communication
Create a communication plan to alert these individuals:
- Instructors who use Collaborate Original inside of a Learning Management System (LMS) integration
- Users who use Collaborate Original outside of an LMS integration for meetings, project teams, virtual offices, scheduled webinars, etc.
Consider targeted communications and follow up with users who have recently used a Collaborate Original session or accessed a Collaborate Original recording.
This should be done far enough in advance so that instructors have time to download their recordings from the current semester or past semesters, redesign their instructional session activities for the new Collaborate Ultra workflows, and practice with the new tools prior to the next semester starting.
Please note that Collaborate Original links will be broken and recordings unavailable once your region reaches the EOS date.
End of Support (EOS) Resources
You have access to the original VCR recording files. To play these files, you first need to convert them into Unplugged standalone recording by using the Publish application. Since Publish and the “Unplugged” recording require Java 8 runtime to be installed, we suggest using Publish to convert the VCR recording files into MP4 file, which can be played back anywhere.
Use Blackboard Collaborate Publish to create standalone recordings
Enable Collaborate Ultra
Similar to Collaborate Original, you can utilize Collaborate Ultra inside or outside of an LMS integration.
- For your LMS integration, install the Blackboard Collaborate Ultra Building Block, Moodle Module, or LTI tool. Contact support for your new integration credentials.
- If you are using the Blackboard Collaborate Building Block, switch to the Blackboard Collaborate Ultra Building Block.
- If you need to manage users outside of an LMS integration, you may need a new username and password. Go to Collaborate Ultra to log in.
- You may want to follow the Collaborate Ultra Release Notes to keep up on new features and releases.
Prepare your users for Collaborate Ultra
You also need to plan and support your Collaborate users with using the new Collaborate Ultra tool.
- The Collaborate Ultra Communication Toolkit may include some helpful resources.
- Create a training plan for your users, especially the instructors who will be using Collaborate Ultra for teaching and learning sessions within their courses. Our consulting services team will be happy to assist you with your training needs. Please review the Collaborate Ultra training options.
- Consider updating your faculty and student support resource portals with some of the following Collaborate Ultra information for users:
