September 20, 2005 - (HOSTSEARCH.COM) - One of the UK’s leading universities, Durham University has been awarded an annual grant program offering up to US $25,000 for its e-Learning development work. The grant was offered by Blackboard, a supplier of e-Learning software and services who sponsored the ‘Blackboard Greenhouse Projects’, an international competition aimed at cultivating innovation in e-Learning and fostering academic dialogue, research and best practices in e-Education. Four US academics and two senior executives from Blackboard evaluated 39 proposals presented as part of the competition, with papers evaluated in terms of “innovativeness, ability to advance the community of practice, ability to advance the adoption of e-Learning and also their sustainability”. Dr Malcolm Murray wrote Durham’s winning “Foundations” proposal which covered ways Blackboard's e-Learning software can be tailored to the needs of individual institutions. Dr Murray said of the proposal: “The ‘Foundations’ proposal seeks to foster a developer community, one which combines computing skills with an understanding of the ways we learn and teach. It will first examine the motivation and educational objectives of existing Building Block developers from across the globe and then try and stimulate the fledgling Building Blocks developer community within the UK.”
