-- More Colleges and Universities Embrace Mobile Strategies to Keep Up with Rising Student Expectations

WASHINGTON, Nov. 27, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Blackboard's native mobile applications for learning and campus life have been downloaded more than 4.5 million times, the company announced today. The milestone caps a heavy period of use of Blackboard Mobile™ apps during the back to school season, and marks a steady increase in the number of institutions leveraging the apps as part of their mobile strategies.

During the first two months of the fall 2012 semester alone, Blackboard Mobile™ Learn was downloaded an average of 7,000 times per day with students logging in over 70 million times. Blackboard Mobile™ Central helped students, alumni and others keep track of the college sports season and other news with over 10 million user checks of game scores, articles and schedules.

"The continuous adoption of mobility in education confirms that this 'trend' has truly become an expectation of today's college-bound students," said Kayvon Beykpour, General Manager of Blackboard Mobile. "The use of mobile devices in education is not an experiment. Rather, mobile has become a mission-critical channel of communication for everything from course delivery to university marketing and recruitment."

Branded for each institution, Blackboard Mobile Central is an LMS-agnostic suite of applications within a single mobile app that includes course catalogs, event calendars, university news, sports schedules, directories, interactive maps and custom campus tours. The number of institutions with an active Blackboard Mobile Central app in use for marketing, recruitment and campus life purposes has doubled since 2011. Some institutions have developed and launched their apps in as little as three months.

Blackboard Mobile Learn allows students to access documents in multiple formats, post announcements, create threaded discussion posts, create and upload content and much more. Since the introduction of personal license downloads earlier this year, over 120,000 students and faculty have purchased Blackboard Mobile Learn directly from the App Store or Google Play.

This announcement was made at Online Educa Berlin, where Kayvon Beykpour will speak about how Blackboard is helping institutions leverage mobile technology during Mobile Lunch Seminars.

Earlier this year, Blackboard Mobile Learn was awarded the Society of Pedagogy and Information (GPI)'s Comenius EduMedia Seal of Approval and the Comenius EduMedia Medal in the category 'Educational Management Systems'. The product also received a 2013 eLearning award, along with Ruhr University Bochum. Given by the eLearning Journal, the awards acknowledge the best and most innovative project consortia.

Blackboard Mobile apps are available as native applications for all major device platforms, including Android™ and iOS®, as well as the mobile Web for all other Web-enabled devices.

For more information about Blackboard Mobile, please visit www.blackboard.com/mobile or follow @Bb_Mobile on Twitter.

About Blackboard Inc.

Blackboard Inc. is a global leader in enterprise technology and innovative solutions that improve the experience of millions of students and learners around the world every day. Blackboard's solutions allow thousands of higher education, K-12, professional, corporate, and government organizations to extend teaching and learning online, facilitate campus commerce and security, and communicate more effectively with their communities. Founded in 1997, Blackboard is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with offices in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

Any statements in this press release about future expectations, plans and prospects for Blackboard represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release. Actual results may differ materially as a result of various important factors. The Company anticipates that subsequent events and developments will cause the Company's views to change. However, while the Company may elect to update these statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so.

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