Blackboard rolls out two new SaaS offerings

Blackboard has announced two new SaaS offerings to provide more customised, flexible and powerful options for deploying its Learning Management System (LMS).

The two tiers of the SaaS offerings, Blackboard Learn SaaS Plus and Blackboard Learn SaaS Advantage, are differentiated by their respective options and service levels.

Customers using Learn in a SaaS environment have access to benefits such as zero-downtime upgrades, higher quality through continuous delivery of regular bug fixes, new services innovation, and increased scalability.

The new Plus and Advantage tiers give institutions the ability to scale, customise and configure Blackboard Learn for their specific and individual needs, the company says.

These tiers of SaaS also offer more support for commercial and custom-built integrations, additional service tiers, and a new Flexible Deployment Option.

The Flexible Deployment Option allows schools to have control over when new features and enhancements are deployed to their environment.

"This is a big day for our customers, as it represents the latest step we've taken to provide them with an LMS that is tailored to meet their exact needs," says Mark Strasssman, Blackboard senior vice president of product management and marketing.

"We believe strongly in the power of SaaS as a critical component to the future success of our customers.

"These new SaaS offerings will provide customers with greater control and flexibility, giving them more choices for how to accomplish their goals while implementing the right solution for their institution," he says.

The SaaS Plus and SaaS Advantage offerings are currently available to higher education institutions in the United States. Details about availability in other markets are forthcoming.