[Athen] Fwd: Blackboard Makes Major Open Source and AngelAnnouncements

N Dogbo ndogbo at gmail.com
Tue Mar 27 07:59:56 PDT 2012


How do people come up with terms like, "blogosphere", "twitterverse", etc ?

:) My goodness! :)

Nicaise


----- Think not with your EYES and you shall have a perfect VISION! ---


_____

From: athen-list-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu
[mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Prof Norm
Coombs
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 9:31 PM
To: athen-list-u.washington.edu
Subject: [Athen] Fwd: Blackboard Makes Major Open Source and
AngelAnnouncements




Subject: Blackboard Makes Major Open Source and Angel Announcements

Late in the day on Monday came several press releases from Blacboard. They
bought some companies that provide hosting and related services for
institutions using open source software. They announced that they will
continue to support Angel. They also create an "Open Source Services
Group."



Below is a compilation of the news from Blackboard, some blog and news
articles, and some select choice observations from the twitterverse. I
tried to give you a sense of many of the articles by paraphrasing or quoting
their take on the issue.

Honestly, it's hard to tell what to make of this. I'm sure we'll learn more
in the coming days. Meanwhile, WCET wanted you to have a rich compilation
of resources to help figure out how this news might help or hurt you.

If you would like to start a discussion on this issue, send an email to
wcetdiscuss at wcet.wiche.edu.

Best of luck in reading the tea leaves!!
Russ



Blackboard Press Releases from March 26
. Blackboard
<http://www.blackboard.com/About-Bb/News-Center/Press-Releases.aspx?releasei
d=1676733> Announces Continued Support for Angel - this is a change from the
previous "expiration" date of October 2014 for Angel and from Blackboard's
tendency to eventually discontinue other products has acquired.
. Blackboard
<http://www.blackboard.com/About-Bb/News-Center/Press-Releases.aspx?releasei
d=1676738> Acquires Moodlerooms, Netspot - The Twittersphere was abuzz with
opinions about the acquisition of these two companies, which provide open
source solutions for institutions. Both will continue to operate
independently to support their clients.
o Senior leaders from Blackboard, Moodlerooms and NetSpot signed a
<http://www.blackboard.com/About-Bb/News-Center/Press-Releases/Strategy-Upda
te/statement-of-principles.aspx> Statement of Principles affirming that
their work would continue a number of key initiatives currently supported by
Moodlerooms and NetSpot, including contributions of software code to the
open source community, financial support for the Moodle Trust, and continued
support for community gatherings like Moodlemoots.
. Blackboard
<http://www.blackboard.com/About-Bb/News-Center/Press-Releases.aspx?releasei
d=1676740> Launches Open Source Services Group - "a new effort to support
clients using open source education technologies. With the announcement, the
company will continue to focus on its flagship Blackboard
<http://www.blackboard.com/Platforms/Learn/Overview.aspx> Learn
<http://www.blackboard.com/Platforms/Learn/Overview.aspx> T platform as well
as ANGEL and Edline, while also helping institutions successfully manage
open source learning management systems (LMS) including Moodle and Sakai."
. Blackboard
<http://www.blackboard.com/About-Bb/News-Center/Press-Releases.aspx?releasei
d=1676736> Appoints Sakai Foundation Board Member Charles Severance to Lead
Company's Sakai Initiatives - "a longtime leader and one of the founders of
the Sakai community, to a senior role to lead the company's initiative on
the Sakai open source learning management system."
o Chuck
<http://www.dr-chuck.com/csev-blog/2012/03/connecting-blackboard-sakai-and-o
pen-source/> Severance's blog posting giving a fairly extensive explanation
of why he accepted this position and his excitement for the future.

So what does Blackboard have to say about this once you get beyond the press
release-speak?
. Ray Henderson is CTO and President, Academic Platforms for
Blackboard describes their plans in his blog post: Evolution
<http://www.rayhblog.com/blog/2012/03/evolution-unbound-blackboard-embraces-
open-source.html> Unbound: Blackboard Embraces Open Source - ".should we
expand our offerings to include multiple LMS products, particularly the open
source products that are now more widely adopted? Our answer is yes. The
long game for Blackboard is to bring the full complement of our solutions
across the student lifecycle to more institutions"
. Michael Chasen, CEO, and Ray Henderson write An
<http://www.blackboard.com/About-Bb/News-Center/Press-Releases/Strategy-Upda
te/Open-Letter.aspx> Open Letter to the Education Community - "The high
level change is this: Blackboard is becoming a multiple learning platform
company that supports both commercially developed software as well as open
source solutions." Why? Two reasons:
o "First, this shift is the result of the broader perspective that has
come over the past few years as we have updated our vision and mission.
Rather than focusing just on the LMS market, we're looking at the entire
student lifecycle within the education institutions we serve.:
o "Second, online learning continues to grow all around the world, applied
to increasingly diverse learning challenges every year. As usage deepens,
needs not only expand, they also become more specialized. The result for
education institutions is the need for increased choice among systems with
different strengths and deployment models to best suit their particular
situation."

News and Reactions
. Blackboard
<http://www.sacbee.com/2012/03/26/4367794/blackboard-acquires-moodlerooms.ht
ml> Acquires Moodlerooms, NetSpot (Sacramento Bee article)
. Blackboard,
<http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/blackboard-mood
lerooms-and-netspot-first-reactions> MoodleRooms, NetSpot: First Reactions
(Inside Higher Ed - What do you think post from Josh Kim.
. Tony
<http://www.tonybates.ca/2012/03/26/blackboard-adds-on-open-source-service/>
Bates' blog on the new open source service - love the graphic
. Blackboard
<http://gettingsmart.com/blog/2012/03/blackboard-buys-moodlerooms-embraces-o
pen/> Buys MoodeRooms & Embraces Open (Getting Smart) - "This announcement
will make my OER friends nervous, but I think it has the potential to bring
new investment and energy to open platforms."
. You
<http://www.hackeducation.com/2012/03/26/blackboard-moodlerooms-open-washing
/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HackEducation+%
28Hack+Education%29&utm_content=Google+Reader> Can Acquire Open Source
Companies, But You Can't Buy Open Source Community (Hack Education) --
Charles Severance (aka "Dr. Chuck") is one of the founding members of the
Sakai community.Severance is also the author of the book Sakai: Free as in
Freedom. I don't mean to go all Richard Stallman here, but that's not the
F-word that comes to mind with the Blackboard news today.F as in failure,
fiasco, flop, for starters."
. Blackboard
<http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/marketplacek12/2012/03/blackboard_inc_buys_m
oodlerooms_and_netspot_with_eye_toward_open_source.html> Inc. Buys
Moodlerooms and NetSpot, with Eye Toward Open Source (Marketplace K-12) -
This is strange news- Blackboard's academic platforms CEO Ray Henderson
admitted as much in a lengthy
<http://www.rayhblog.com/blog/2012/03/evolution-unbound-blackboard-embraces-
open-source.html> blog post- "his is strange news- Blackboard's academic
platforms CEO Ray Henderson admitted as much in a lengthy
<http://www.rayhblog.com/blog/2012/03/evolution-unbound-blackboard-embraces-
open-source.html> blog post-because Moodle is both open source and free for
users, while Blackboard is a paid, proprietary product."

Tweets (I'm not crediting any of these to protect the guilty, but thought
they gave a good range of reactions.
. "Whaaa???"
. "the LMS space is just a new platform for an old pedagogy. We can
move past them as educators."
. "purely anecdotal, but I don't know of one univ/college that has
switched to Bb lately. Lots *away* from"
. "Read the #blackboard Statement of Principles.but still feeling
nauseous"
. "Inclined to agree with the "house divided" thinking, but."I want
to believe" that Bb can pull an IBM."
. "for me, the question isn't "can Bb be trusted"...but "does this
make economic sense"
. "In other news, The Empire buys The Jedi Academy; will help
support training in The Force."


Russell Poulin
Deputy Director, Research and Analysis
WCET - WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies
rpoulin at wiche.edu
wcet.wiche.edu <http://wcet.wiche.edu/>
303-541-0305
WCET Twitter: wcet_info <http://twitter.com/#!/wcet_info/>
My Twitter: RussPoulin <http://twitter.com/russpoulin>


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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
It's never too late to become what you might have been. George Eliot
Once you choose hope, anything's possible. Christopher Reeve
Norman Coombs norm.coombs at gmail.com

Making Online Teaching Accessible: Inclusive Course Design for Students with
Disabilities by Norman Coombs published by Jossey-Bass Oct 10,2010
http://www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470499044.html



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