We are proud and pleased to announce that PCG Academia is starting a partnership with Poznan’s Collegium Da Vinci – one of the fastest growing non-public universities in the country, focused on developing a modern educational model. CDV, through PCG, will benefit from innovative platforms supporting remote and on-site student learning (Blackboard Learn and Ally) and professional video management (Panopto).

PCG Academia, as part of an international consulting firm – Public Consulting Group, specializes in providing Polish universities with modern IT solutions offered in highly developed markets, i.e. the United States or the United Kingdom. The multi-year contract signed between PCG Academia and Collegium da Vinci, involves the delivery to the university of three, stand-alone solutions offered by our partners Anthology and Panopto.

Blackboard Learn, along with Canvas and Moodle, is one of the three, most popular e-learning platforms in the world. Operating in the global education market for more than 20 years, Blackboard, two years ago, became the property of US EdTech giant Anthology.

Leveraging the capital and experience of the new owners, the developers of the Blackboard Learn platform have recently made tremendous technological advances, introducing a number of new features to their tool, including mechanisms to support AI-based e-learning course creation. Since Blackboard Learn will be delivered to CDV as a service, the university will be a permanent beneficiary of the technological innovations introduced by the tool’s developer.

Following the example of top American and British universities, Blackboard Learn at Collegium da Vinci will become the main interface of communication between the student and the university. It is here that the student will check the course schedule, communicate with their lecturers and other students, complete an electronic exam, or finally gain access to materials that support the implementation of online classes or those conducted in the formula of stationary.

Ultimately, Blackboard Learn is also intended to serve as a gateway to a store of e-learning courses, aimed both at CDV students and a wider audience interested in the university’s educational offer.

Anthology Ally is a standalone module that complements the functionality of the Blackboard Learn platform. Ally is an internationally award-winning tool that allows you to monitor and manage the accessibility of content and learning materials produced and stored on the Blackboard Learn platform. The system will allow you to easily identify which of your courses have elements that do not comply with accessibility guidelines, and indicate to educators the specific actions to be taken to resolve these issues. In addition, Ally enables the conversion of didactic content into a variety of alternative formats – for example, converting text into an audio file or an electronic Braille or e-reader file. With the help of Ally, all CDV students, regardless of their disabilities, will gain equal access to the content disseminated by the university through its e-learning platform.

Panopto is a solution that supports the management of video materials and the creation of interactive, multimedia teaching content, which then becomes an integral part of e-learning courses created on platforms, i.e. Blackboard Learn. By deciding to implement Panopto, Collegium Da Vinci, joins the elite club of the world’s best universities using this tool – according to the manufacturer’s information, as many as 22 of the top 25 universities in this year’s THE World University Rankings, use the Panopto system. Globally, Panopto uses, as many as 1,500 educational institutions.

As part of the implementation that is about to begin, PCG Academia will take care of the smooth project management of the implementation of the Learn, Ally and Panopto systems at the da Vinci College. We will lead the integration of all three platforms with each other in such a way as to prevent the need to enter the same data multiple times in multiple places. In addition, all data on students and the study programs they pursue will be integrated from the dean’s office system used by the university.

The project implemented in partnership by PCG and CDV is part of the university’s broader strategy to build a modern education model based on leading IT tools and meeting the expectations of students. The implementation of our partners’ solutions will allow the university to introduce blended and hybrid education on a larger scale, optimize the use of infrastructure and expand the scale of the university’s operations.