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<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=611345714-27032012><FONT color=#0000ff
size=2 face=Arial>How do people come up with terms like, "blogosphere",
"twitterverse", etc ? :) My goodness! :)</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=611345714-27032012><FONT color=#0000ff
size=2 face=Arial>Nicaise</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=611345714-27032012><FONT color=#0000ff
size=2 face=Arial></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV align=left><FONT size=2 face=Arial>----- Think not with your EYES and you
shall have a perfect VISION! ---</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV><BR>
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<FONT size=2 face=Tahoma><B>From:</B>
athen-list-bounces@mailman1.u.washington.edu
[mailto:athen-list-bounces@mailman1.u.washington.edu] <B>On Behalf Of </B>Prof
Norm Coombs<BR><B>Sent:</B> Monday, March 26, 2012 9:31 PM<BR><B>To:</B>
athen-list-u.washington.edu<BR><B>Subject:</B> [Athen] Fwd: Blackboard Makes
Major Open Source and AngelAnnouncements<BR></FONT><BR></DIV>
<DIV></DIV><FONT size=3><BR><BR>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 class=cite cite="" type="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> <BR><BR>If you would like to remove yourself from this list, send
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</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><X-SIGSEP>
<P></X-SIGSEP><FONT size=2> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <BR>It's never
too late to become what you might have been. George Eliot<BR>Once you choose
hope, anything's possible. Christopher Reeve<BR>Norman Coombs
norm.coombs@gmail.com<BR><BR></FONT><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman, Times">Making Online Teaching Accessible: Inclusive
Course Design for Students with Disabilities by Norman Coombs published by
Jossey-Bass Oct 10,2010<BR></FONT><FONT color=#0000ff size=3 face=Calibri><U><A
href="http://www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470499044.html"
eudora="autourl">http://www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470499044.html<BR><BR></A></FONT></U></P></BODY></HTML>