After many years of use, UMBC’s license for Class Collaborate (formerly Blackboard Collaborate) will end on July 31, 2025.

As one of our longest licensed tools, Collaborate provided synchronous support for Blackboard courses, serving more than 300,000 sessions over the last ten years. However, since it was acquired by Class Technologies in 2022, it is unclear if and how Collaborate will be supported and developed over the long term, given the company’s priority of its own synchronous platform based on Zoom. 

In Spring 24, we announced that we would standardize one version of Blackboard (Ultra) starting this fall. Ideally, we would also simplify the synchronous video conference platform used by courses; however, we recognize that students will likely use a variety of tools in their working lives after graduation. Therefore it is essential to expand access to licensed synchronous tools while we also still have Collaborate for another academic year. 

DoIT offers three synchronous meeting tools with robust functionality:

• Google Meet 
• Microsoft Teams
• Webex

To learn more about these synchronous platforms, please explore pedagogical and technical use cases in this comparison chart. If you have a specific use case not listed, please open an RT ticket for a consult.

Attendance Tracking 

While these synchronous platforms offer Blackboard integrations at varying levels, none support 1) attendance synchronization to the Blackboard gradebook and 2) groups synchronization between breakouts and Blackboard. All platforms, however, do provide attendance reports, which will be important for faculty who need to track student attendance as well as proposed regulatory changes for attendance in 100% online courses.

We welcome faculty feedback via this brief survey about synchronous platforms and attendance. 

Preparing for the Transition

Starting this fall, Instructional Technology will offer training sessions to familiarize faculty and staff with Google Meet and Microsoft Teams. Webex training is available upon request. These sessions will focus on both the technical aspects of using the tools and pedagogical strategies to enhance student engagement.

Users who wish to save Collaborate recordings will need to migrate them to Panopto by May 25, 2025. 

1. Download Collaborate recordings to your computer. 
2. Create a new folder in Panopto for Collaborate recordings in My Folder.
3. Upload Collaborate recordings to your new Panopto folder.

Collaborate recordings made before July 1, 2024 will be retired by October 1, 2024.

NOTE: Due to FERPA restrictions, the reuse of any recordings (Collaborate, Webex, etc.) is not permitted if those recordings feature audio or video of students without their express permission.

Key Dates to Remember

May 25, 2025 - Faculty and student access to Collaborate via Blackboard ends

June 15, 2025 - Access to Collaborate sessions outside Blackboard ends

July 31, 2025 - End of support for Collaborate, including DoIT access to the Collaborate system