STRATEGY TO IMPLEMENT A CONTINGENCY PLAN USING BLACKBOARD TO MAINTAIN ACADEMIC OPERATION DUE TO AN EMERGENCY EVENT THAT RESTRICT ACCESS TO THE FACULTY AND STUDENTS TO ON-CAMPUS ACTIVITIES

The creation of collaborative learning communities of teachers to encourage the incorporation of information technologies, communication and collaboration in educational processes has been a fundamental pillar of the philosophy and successful work of the Open Education Center (Centro de Educación Abierta, CEA, in Spanish) at the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California (UABC), and one of the most important strategies to improve learning experience using technologies for on-campus students and to develop online programs. The network consists on 44 leader teachers of the university (one for each department) that have been trained as coordinator of distance activities using information and communication technologies, through online programs with the central objective of accelerating the incorporation of technologies in educational processes having one person who understand technologies, processes, and the organizational culture of the department. A key factor for this success has been that each one of these teachers works with his department chair designing the specific strategies that suits the department, considering its particularities, programs and their community. Derived from the activities of this network, after six years, the CEA currently serves more than 14 thousand students attending on-campus, or in blended or online learning programs, operated by over 712 teachers in about 1067 published courses in the Learning Management System (LMS) Blackboard.

With this experience as a background, the network made possible the implementation and operation of a Contingency plan as a strategy to maintain the academic operation using the LMS Blackboard due of an emergency event that made access difficult to campus for students and teachers. During 2009 more than 1500 faculty members were trained in the basic use of Blackboard in two months, preparing them to maintain academic activities if the university had to close its doors for a rebound of AH1N1 influenza in winter of 2009.

During 2010, the contingency plan designed in 2009 had to be put in operation in one of the three main campus due to the damages suffered on buildings and classrooms after an earthquake measuring 7.2 degrees on the Richter scale, on April 4th . Students and faculty of five departments were not able to assist on-campus classes during the rest of the semester, even though classes continued; they worked on online activities using Blackboard.

This paper present the strategy to define a Contingency Plan using a LMS as Blackboard, in a university with more than 46000 students, 5300 faculty, 44 departments, distribute in three main campuses and six locations in the state of Baja California Mexico. Also, describe the strategy to train more than 2000 teachers in two months preparing them to maintain academic operation via Blackboard in case of a following outbreak of influenza AH1N1 or earthquakes; and it will finally present what we learned and how the Contingency Plan has been improved after the first experience in 2010 with the earthquake that damaged one of the main campus causing the need to close access to the faculty and students to the facilities.