Open-Source

There is already an open-source choice, http://www.sakaiproject.org/. Why only so universities use it, I do not not know.

Jonas!, Mastermind at The CardBoard Box Mansion, at 8:12 am EDT on October 13, 2005

rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic

Perhaps now we will see that David Noble, as Cassandra, was right. “Blackboard” is now the default, the Microsoft, to which others must march. Regardless of “open access” LMS systems, the “classroom” will become as familiar to faculty as the brick space has been since Plato.

Add open access courses and the university becomes generic and faculty become production workers, K->16.

The key issue is control within “bounds” which will not only be the software, but the administration and the market (oops, students).

tom abeles, at 9:22 am EDT on October 13, 2005

Yet another open-source CMS — lon-capa

.. and there are probably others ..

http://www.lon-capa.org/

Bart J, Little fish at Big Sports U, at 1:49 pm EDT on October 13, 2005

Sticker Shock

Why isn’t this a monopoly? If I remember correctly, Microsoft owns a large part of Blackboard. Blackboard can charge whatever it wants and provide any level of service it wants, and there is nothing universities can do about it. This is not good. Universities should get ready for some serious sticker shock.

James, at 1:52 pm EDT on October 13, 2005

This merger will become a monopoly

I do agree with James, with this merger, many universities will have to pay a huge sum to use this platform if they want to expand on their distance learning courses—if a college switches from a “homegrown” platform to BlackBoard, they may lose potential students since tutition costs will raise. As far as I know, BlackBoard charges per registered course and not per student. Where will the students find the funding for it if they are relying on financial aid alone?

Liz_T, at 2:45 pm EDT on October 13, 2005

The real question I am asking is whether the acquisition of WebCT by Blackboard will improve the quality of Blackboard’s LMS. My understanding is that these two systems are not easily stitched together and that, like Prometheus, Blackboard may simply stop supporting WebCT clients after a period of time and ‘encourage’ them to switch to Blackboard. $180 million dollars ($26 from WebCT coffers, $80 million Blackboard loan and the rest from Blackboard’s coffers) will be siphoned off by the venture capitalists. $180 mil is a lot of cash so it’s too bad that it wasn’t invested into R&D to create a better LMS product. Absolutely nothing has changed! I think that as WebCT licences expire, these institutions will awake and become prudent managers of the purse by carefully shopping around among real LMS vendors out there like Desire2Learn, Angel, etc. Or they may decide to take the plunge into the whole new genre of Open Source LMSs. Or they may flock to Blackboard in the hope that size matters.

Steve, at 8:39 pm EDT on October 14, 2005

Many miles to travel yet...

I doubt that Blackboard will be able to simply drop WebCT’s product at some point. Institutions that use WebCT have too much invested in training and development to easily move to a different platform. Rather, Blackboard needs to move the two platforms closer to each other, take the best of both worlds (as can be applied) and build a better CMS.

If I were in their shoes, I’d be putting together focus groups of users — faculty, technical, and administrative — in the next 6 months to a year to begin talking about the two systems and identifying what needs to stay and what needs to change.

I suspect both companies are into at least the next generation of their systems (if they use an overlapping set of development teams as some software vendors do), which means we could be 2 versions out from any major changes in either platform. That said, WebCT has been steadily moving in Blackboard’s direction in terms of ease of use, so I’m betting we will see some service packs on both ends that offer some new functionality.

I do not share Tom’s pessimism (or especially Noble’s) regarding faculty and this new merger. With open source and a few other competitors, this has not sewn up the market for Blackboard yet. There are still plenty of wrong steps they could take. Even so though, I don’t see the online environment deteriorating faculty academic freedom or work rights. Many of the changes in faculty work relationships, where they have happened, have as much to do with greater desire for institutional accountability as the changing scope of learning environments, and these changes are still far from paradigmic as far as the faculty culture is concerned.

Clint Brooks, at 2:46 pm EDT on October 18, 2005

As I said over at EduBlogR a couple of days ago, there’s a chance that the combined company will take this as an opportunity to create a truly new, truly best-practices e-learning platform rather than simply engage in a shake-down of hte client base.

There’s ALWAYS a chance that pigs will fly.

Corrie_B, at 11:50 am EDT on October 20, 2005

What’s the latest on this merger

What is the latest on this merger. Which technology should we be focused on? Is Blackboard going to continue with WebCT?

BettieLou, at 4:10 pm EDT on April 3, 2006

Moodle Trademark — When Open Source Isn’t Really “Open”

As one commenter pointed out here, the problem with open source products like Moodle is the need for in-house expertise or going with a Moodle partner (the commercial arm of Moodle) for your support services. And with Moodle’s strict enforcement of its Trademark, those two options are really the only two you have...be self-sufficient or contract with a Moodle partner.

An independent company can not advertise Moodle hosting, support, consulting, etc., without being a Moodle partner which requires them to pay a royalty to Moodle.com. And if a company can’t advertise, then you can’t find them...thus creating and advertising and service monopoly for moodle.com.

See the discussion at the link below for more detail on this topic:

http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=48528

Note: If you are prompted to login, just press login as guest.

This in itself, is, in my opinion, completely counter to the spirit and intent of open source. Do you know of another open source project that sends out cease-and-desist notices like the one at the link above? There is, in my opinion, something unethical about moodle.com claiming exclusive rights to a product that has been developed by a world-wide open source community.

Moodle.com could protect the Moodle trademark, have an official partner program, and allow others to participate in Moodle hosting, support, consulting, etc. The competition would be good for Moodle and anyone interested in adopting Moodle.

So what does this mean for those considering adopting Moodle? It should serve as a warning sign to anyone thinking of adopting Moodle on a large institutional level if you are not able to provide your own support and development...what’s the difference in paying Blackboard and paying Moodle.com for support?

Remember, Blackboard was very affordable a few years ago. Now that they have a large portion of the market, it is not so inexpensive. Also, remember, even WebCT (now owned by Blackboard) started off as a non-profit collaborative project.

Beware of monoploies...they are seldom good for the consumer.

Steve, at 1:10 pm EDT on August 27, 2006