Using the Blackboard Release 6 connector, students and instructors seamlessly link to Perception from within the Blackboard Learning System. This means institutions can maintain student and instructor profiles within one system while taking advantage of the powerful assessment features of Perception. Assessments can be scheduled from within Blackboard, with instructors viewing assessments that pertain to each particular course.

Blackboard Learning System (Release 6) features curriculum-driven content management and content sharing that gives instructors flexibility and control of their online classrooms, as well as collaborative applications such as discussion boards and virtual classrooms. It also incorporates tools that help institutions reduce administrative overhead and utilizes Blackboard Building Blocks architecture, which enables customization, extension and integration of the platform.

Questionmark and Blackboard are committed to working with industry leaders to create interoperability and common functionality. Instructional designers and instructors who need comprehensive question types, such as drag-and-drop and hot-spot, with a pedagogical focus, can provide all styles of assessments within their course. Results are not only maintained within Perception for item analysis, but the high-level results are also stored within Blackboard's grade book for easy access by students and instructors.

"Our clients continue to benefit significantly from the ongoing collaboration between Questionmark and Blackboard," said Dan Cane, Senior Vice President at Blackboard. "Through our Building Blocks program applications like Questionmark Perception are easily integrated with the Blackboard Learning System offering our clients great flexibility to choose applications that meet their specific education requirements."

The University of Dundee has tested and evaluated the connector software using a development environment and is planning to include the connector within its Perception and Blackboard production environments. "We regard the direct links to Perception assessments from within Blackboard, without further student or instructor authentication, and the storage and display of Perception marks within the Blackboard gradebook as very positive advances," said Dr. Richard Parsons of the university's Centre for Teaching and Learning. "Seamless access for lecturers to the Questionmark Enterprise Manager will allow them to monitor the results of their assessment and continually improve quality. For the students, the connector offers a straightforward link between aspects of their learning materials that may be contained within the Blackboard VLE and the advanced assessments provided by their tutors using Questionmark Perception."