Introduction

On January 8, 2002, President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law, launching a new era in American education. No Child Left Behind focuses on how teachers and students can learn to use technology, where previous federal programs focused on increasing access to more technology. The goals of the No Child Left Behind Act are to (1) improve student academic achievement using technology in elementary schools and secondary schools; (2) assist students to become technologically literate by the time they finish the 8th grade; and (3) ensure that teachers are able to integrate technology into the curriculum to improve student achievement (Kozberg, 2002). It is critical that this model of standardization be adopted throughout America's education system in order to enhance learning and student achievement.

The Duquesne University School of Business in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has created an online community called the School of Business Administration Network (SOBA-Net) to enhance communication between faculty, staff, students, and administration. Using a Course Management System (CMS), Blackboard®, as the underlying technology or framework, developers can build an academic management system (AMS).

SOBA-Net is quickly becoming an information source on which students, faculty, and staff depend. The motivation for developing SOBA-Net was to establish a virtual community where students, faculty, adjunct instructors, and staff can work together to achieve a common goal - improve student achievement and produce quality graduates. This paper presents the effects SOBA-Net has had on the School of Business, and discusses the growing user base.