The Bloomsbury Learning Environment

The Bloomsbury Learning Environment (BLE) is a shared learning platform, developed by the Institute of Education, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the Royal Veterinary College and the School of Oriental and African Studies, and also used across Birkbeck. It is the first example of a multiinstitutional implementation of the Blackboard Academic Suite in the UK.

Tutors place lecture notes, PowerPoint presentations, podcasts of lectures and other course-related materials on dedicated course areas, which students can access remotely from anywhere in the world via the internet. Students are therefore able to access their course materials at times which suit them and are able to make any adjustments they may need (e.g. a visually impaired student can adjust font sizes). They can also submit electronic copies of their assessments through the platform.

The BLE can be used to track progress, monitored by both students and their tutors. A variety of tools are available, which provide opportunity for student-led content, both individually and collaboratively authored. These tools include discussion boards, wikis and blogs. The BLE supports and encourages collaborative and personalised learning, accommodating students of all learning styles and abilities. Each college has its own unique BLE interface, but all benefit from coming under one licence.

The collaboration, established in 2004, provides many benefits including sharing technical support, pedagogic expertise, cost efficiencies on licence fees and collaborative funding opportunities. The colleges also share costs for remote hosting of Blackboard, freeing up dependency on IT infrastructures and support within the colleges.