DIGITAL DROPBOX

Digital Dropbox

Abstract

Strong cases for and against online learning emerge from the articles on distance education in the September 2000 Business Communication Quarterly. This papers lead to the believing that cyber learning is neither a lurking evil, about to destroy higher education, nor a panacea for everything that ails higher education today.

Digital Dropbox

Introduction

A source of frustration expressed by instructors who are attempting to increase student participation and engagement by using web-based technologies to enhance the instructional setting has been systemic: the available systems have provided relatively little support, aside from email capabilities, for students to respond to materials provided by the instructor. In this paper, we focus upon the response and file exchange capabilities of Web-Enhanced Instruction. We consider two specific features of Blackboard—Digital Dropbox and Assignments—and show how instructors can use the new Assignments feature to increase interactivity (Dyrud, 2000).

The functionality of the Digital Drop Box tool in the Blackboard Learning System has not changed from previous versions of the application. The Drop Box still provides an area where students and instructors can store and exchange digital files. Students are able to send files to the instructor; the instructor can retrieve and review those files, then return them to the students.

From a student's perspective, the Student Drop Box is bi-directional; students can send files to an instructor, and receive files from an instructor. However, from an instructor's perspective, the Digital Drop Box is multi-directional; an instructor can send files to a single student, selected students, and to all enrolled students in the course.

Review Literature

Blackboard has traditionally included a file exchange service often called Digital Dropbox that allows students to upload their work and permits the instructor to review it at a later time (McEwen, 2001). The graded work, with or without comments, can then be posted by the instructor and downloaded by the student (Quible, 1997). Specifically, the digital dropbox function is intended to allow students to exchange files with the instructor and, when used with group functions, with each other as well. Downloading students' individual assignments becomes a very tedious process and in large classes could take hours. In the event the student has uploaded multiple files, then the instructor has to make sure that all of the files are downloaded for the assignment to be complete.

As Digital Dropbox is a tool area in Blackboard, there is no way to organise different submissions into folders. The entire item in the tool area is either on or off, so there is no means to toggle off one assignment automatically, while another is enabled. To make issues more complicated for students, uploads involve a two-step process, one to upload the file and one to send the file. The act of uploading the file may suggest to the student that the file is in the instructor's dropbox when it is really only queued to be sent to the instructor. Uploaded files that have not been submitted cannot be seen by the instructor. Another issue is that Digital Dropbox is not ...