Blackboard expands Middle East programme

Blackboard, a global leader in education technology, has revealed an expansion of its Middle East programme with BME SAL (BME), a local partnership to meet growing demand for online teaching and learning solutions, reports Market Watch.

With offices in Beirut and Riyadh, BME will work closely with six partners throughout the region to better support clients and the wider use of education technology in schools and universities, corporations, government, military and professional organisations.

A growing number of educational institutions in the Middle East and Brazil are already using Blackboard solutions for online learning, mobile learning and Web collaboration, according to PR Newswire.

Through Blackboard's expanded local presence in each region, clients will benefit from more fluid relationships with the company around product, service and support.

“These partnerships strengthen our ability to support the wider use of learning technologies in markets where we're seeing greater demand for them,” says Michael Chasen, CEO and president of Blackboard. “With these efforts, we can better support the increasing adoption of education technology globally with solutions that support all aspects of the education experience.”

Through Blackboard's increased regional presence, clients will benefit from more fluid relationships with the company around product, service and support issues, says Yahoo Finance.

The effort will also give Blackboard an opportunity to better understand challenges and opportunities faced by educational institutions in the Middle East and to foster closer relationships with leaders in government and business working to support them.

“We have expanded our partnership with Blackboard to cover online learning management, mobile learning, Web collaboration tools and distance learning in an effort to meet a high demand for online learning and create a more engaging, interactive and effective education experience,” says Dr Sami M Al Homod, Dean of E-Learning and Distance Learning at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia.