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Subject: Blackboard Makes Major Open Source and Angel
Announcements<br><br>
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.” <br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite> <br>
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.<br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
If you would like to start a discussion on this issue, send an email to
<a href="mailto:wcetdiscuss@wcet.wiche.edu">wcetdiscuss@wcet.wiche.edu</a>.<br>
<br>
Best of luck in reading the tea leaves!!<br>
Russ<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<b>Blackboard Press Releases from March 26<br>
</b>·
<a href="http://www.blackboard.com/About-Bb/News-Center/Press-Releases.aspx?releaseid=1676733">Blackboard
Announces Continued Support for Angel</a> – 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.<br>
·
<a href="http://www.blackboard.com/About-Bb/News-Center/Press-Releases.aspx?releaseid=1676738">Blackboard
Acquires Moodlerooms, Netspot</a> – 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.<br>
o Senior leaders from Blackboard, Moodlerooms and NetSpot
signed
<a href="http://www.blackboard.com/About-Bb/News-Center/Press-Releases/Strategy-Update/statement-of-principles.aspx">a
Statement of Principles</a> 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.<br>
·
<a href="http://www.blackboard.com/About-Bb/News-Center/Press-Releases.aspx?releaseid=1676740">Blackboard
Launches Open Source Services Group</a> – “a new effort to support
clients using open source education technologies. With the announcement,
the company will continue to focus on its flagship
<a href="http://www.blackboard.com/Platforms/Learn/Overview.aspx">Blackboard
Learn</a><a href="http://www.blackboard.com/Platforms/Learn/Overview.aspx"><sup>™</a></sup>
platform as well as ANGEL and Edline, while also helping institutions
successfully manage open source learning management systems (LMS)
including Moodle and Sakai.”<br>
·
<a href="http://www.blackboard.com/About-Bb/News-Center/Press-Releases.aspx?releaseid=1676736">Blackboard
Appoints Sakai Foundation Board Member Charles Severance to Lead
Company’s Sakai Initiatives</a> – “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.”<br>
o
<a href="http://www.dr-chuck.com/csev-blog/2012/03/connecting-blackboard-sakai-and-open-source/">Chuck
Severance’s blog posting</a> giving a fairly extensive explanation of why
he accepted this position and his excitement for the future.<br>
<br>
<b>So what does Blackboard have to say about this once you get beyond the
press release-speak?<br>
</b>· Ray Henderson is
CTO and President, Academic Platforms for Blackboard describes their
plans in his blog post:
<a href="http://www.rayhblog.com/blog/2012/03/evolution-unbound-blackboard-embraces-open-source.html">Evolution
Unbound: Blackboard Embraces Open Source</a> – “…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”<br>
· Michael Chasen, CEO,
and Ray Henderson write
<a href="http://www.blackboard.com/About-Bb/News-Center/Press-Releases/Strategy-Update/Open-Letter.aspx">An
Open Letter to the Education Community</a> – “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:<br>
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.:<br>
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.”<br>
<br>
<b>News and Reactions<br>
</b>·
<a href="http://www.sacbee.com/2012/03/26/4367794/blackboard-acquires-moodlerooms.html">Blackboard
Acquires Moodlerooms, NetSpot</a> (Sacramento Bee article)<br>
·
<a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/blackboard-moodlerooms-and-netspot-first-reactions">Blackboard,
MoodleRooms, NetSpot: First Reactions</a> (Inside Higher Ed – What do you
think post from Josh Kim.<br>
·
<a href="http://www.tonybates.ca/2012/03/26/blackboard-adds-on-open-source-service/">Tony
Bates’ blog</a> on the new open source service – love the graphic <br>
·
<a href="http://gettingsmart.com/blog/2012/03/blackboard-buys-moodlerooms-embraces-open/">Blackboard
Buys MoodeRooms & Embraces Open</a> (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.”<br>
·
<a href="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">You
Can Acquire Open Source Companies, But You Can’t Buy Open Source
Community</a> (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 <i>Sakai: Free as in
Freedom</i>. 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.”<br>
·
<a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/marketplacek12/2012/03/blackboard_inc_buys_moodlerooms_and_netspot_with_eye_toward_open_source.html">Blackboard
Inc. Buys Moodlerooms and NetSpot, with Eye Toward Open Source</a>
(Marketplace K-12) – This is strange news Blackboard’s academic
platforms CEO Ray Henderson admitted as much in a
<a href="http://www.rayhblog.com/blog/2012/03/evolution-unbound-blackboard-embraces-open-source.html">lengthy
blog post</a> “his is strange news Blackboard’s academic platforms CEO
Ray Henderson admitted as much in a
<a href="http://www.rayhblog.com/blog/2012/03/evolution-unbound-blackboard-embraces-open-source.html">lengthy
blog post</a>because Moodle is both open source and free for users,
while Blackboard is a paid, proprietary product.”<br>
<br>
Tweets (I’m not crediting any of these to protect the guilty, but thought
they gave a good range of reactions…<br>
· “Whaaa???”<br>
· “the LMS space is just
a new platform for an old pedagogy. We can move past them as
educators.”<br>
· “purely anecdotal, but
I don't know of one univ/college that has switched to Bb lately. Lots
*away* from”<br>
· “Read the #blackboard
Statement of Principles…but still feeling nauseous”<br>
· “Inclined to
agree with the "house divided" thinking, but…"I want to
believe" that Bb can pull an IBM.”<br>
· “for me, the question
isn't "can Bb be trusted"...but "does this make economic
sense"<br>
· “In other news, The
Empire buys The Jedi Academy; will help support training in The
Force.”<br>
<br>
<br>
Russell Poulin<br>
Deputy Director, Research and Analysis<br>
WCET - WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies<br>
rpoulin@wiche.edu<br>
<a href="http://wcet.wiche.edu/">wcet.wiche.edu</a><br>
303-541-0305<br>
WCET Twitter:
<a href="http://twitter.com/#!/wcet_info/">wcet_info</a> <br>
My Twitter:
<a href="http://twitter.com/russpoulin">RussPoulin</a> <br>
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