192 March 2021
UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO
aggressively worked to help us in that space.
“And I can’t say enough about Blackboard.
We moved to Blackboard in the cloud
more than a year ago, so that put us in a
good position. When our faculty and our
students are accessing our LMS of choice
here, we ensure they've got robust access,
not just from campus, but also when they're
away from campus somewhere. As you
can imagine, the data and the content
that's inside of Blackboard has dramatically
ramped up.”
Bible says that he was “so impressed” with
the creative ways faculty and students have
been using these tools. But he admits that
they are not as intuitive as plug-and-play
solutions like Zoom, and as a result learned a
fundamental lesson that has helped refocus
UB’s digital transformation.
“We need to ramp up that personal
relationship with the student,” he says. “We
need that AI tool that will help guide faculty
through the complex questions that they
may have about using technologies, or even
pedagogically, to be able to change things in
their classroom.”
UB has partnered with Ivy.ai to bring
artificial intelligence to campus for the
first time. “I appreciate Ivy in their role
because I think they've helped us, as with
other schools, in aggressively transitioning
to meet the one-on-one needs of our
institution. And can I say that's one of
the big challenges, is retaining
relationships, retaining the connected feel
of the institution.”
This is a critical point in Bible’s vision of
the role technology will play for UB classes
of 2025 and beyond, illustrated during an
autumn forum, in which the UB President
was interviewed through video conferencing,
and joined by 300 IT staff members online.