Blackboard (Bb) Advice and Message Threads
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

Table of Contents

Bob Jensen's threads on the history of course management systems are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm

What next in course management since Blackboard is taking aim at its own foot?

Moving Into Blackboard in a Big Way:  The University of Texas

Channel to the Internet

Positive Threads

Negative Threads

Training, Testimonials, and Videos 

Blackboard and Datatel Partnering

Nuventive's iWebfolio 

Various alternatives to Blackboard and WebCT --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm#Moodle

Blog Software Could Be a 'Blackboard Killer'
How to alleviate the overpricing and monopoly behavior of Blackboard course management software
"Colleges Consider Using Blogs Instead of Blackboard:  Professors at CUNY debate the pros and cons after enduring technical problems with the course-management system ," by Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 5, 2009 --- http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i38/38blogcms.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Watch the video at http://chronicle.com/media/video/v55/i38/brightcove/?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Jim Groom sounded like a preacher at a religious revival when he spoke to professors and administrators at the City University of New York last month. "For the love of God, open up, CUNY," he said, raising his voice and his arms. "It's time!" But his topic was technology, not theology.

Mr. Groom is an instructional technologist at the University of Mary Washington, and he was the keynote speaker at an event here on how to better run CUNY's online classrooms. The meeting's focus was an idea that is catching on at a handful of colleges and universities around the country: Instead of using a course-management system to distribute materials and run class discussions, why not use free blogging software — the same kind that popular gadflies use for entertainment sites?

The approach can save colleges money, for one thing. And true believers like Mr. Groom argue that by using blogs, professors can open their students' work to the public, not just to those in the class who have a login and password to a campus course-management system. Open-source blog software, supporters say, also gives professors more ability to customize their online classrooms than most commercial course-management software does.

Organizers originally expected around 20 people to show up to the daylong meeting, which included technology demonstrations and discussions. But they ended up having to book an overflow room to accommodate the more than 120 attendees.

Blackboard Inc., whose course-management system is used throughout CUNY's campuses, has become particularly unpopular there this semester after a series of technical problems. In March the Blackboard software was offline for three days, making it impossible for students or professors to access material for many courses.

"When Blackboard is down, it's like the door to the college is nailed shut," said Joseph Ugoretz, director of technology and learning at CUNY's Macaulay Honors College, explaining that some professors use the software to administer quizzes and teach online.

Those problems have caused many here to consider alternatives. At one point during the CUNY meeting, Mr. Ugoretz said the blog software the university is experimenting with, called WordPress, could be a "Blackboard killer."

But despite a slew of jokes about Blackboard throughout the day, many attendees admitted that when the course-management system works, it offers easy-to-use features that students and professors have come to rely on. Even those speakers who encouraged professors to use blogs instead of Blackboard said that universities should probably support both.

Doing Something 'For Real'

To demonstrate how a blog might be used in a course, Zoë Sheehan-Saldaña, an assistant professor of art at CUNY's Baruch College, showed off the blog for her course "Designing With Computer Animation." Students posted their assignments on the blog so that other students — and people outside the class — could see them. Students were encouraged to post comments on one another's work as well.

Although new versions of Blackboard include a bloglike feature, Ms. Sheehan-Saldaña said there are benefits in teaching students to create blogs using systems they might encounter in future jobs.

"It looks like a real Web site," she said, noting that the course blog has a look and feel similar to those of other blogs. "For students to have a sense that they're doing something 'for real' is very powerful."

Mr. Groom, in his talk, described a project he runs at Mary Washington in which professors create blogs for dozens of courses using WordPress. Attendees expressed interest in the approach but wondered how widely it would catch on.

Setting up a course blog would be more work for professors, said Stephen Powers, an assistant professor of education at Bronx Community College. "Blackboard has a fairly short learning curve," he said.

Mr. Powers uses Blackboard for his courses and generally likes it. "I'm not against it," he said. "I just want it to work."

Albert Robinson, instructional-technology coordinator at Bronx Community College, said blog software could eventually replace the need for Blackboard there, but he didn't see that happening anytime soon.

William Bernhardt, an associate professor of English who teaches online courses at the College of Staten Island, said the university system needed to offer something easy to use, like Blackboard, to most professors, who don't have time to devote to technology. CUNY should also help professors who do want to try blog tools for their courses, he said: "I think people who are here today are ones who want to go further."

Some professors asked whether it was possible to run a blog that only students could see, noting that they had concerns about making course activities public.

In an interview, Mr. Groom said some people at Mary Washington had worried at first about opening up their online classrooms. Some feared that students might post crude comments on course blogs.

"A lot of people said it is going to maybe detract from the institution's public profile because people are going to say things, and there's going to be some sort of scandal," he said. "But it has done nothing but reinforce what we're doing as important — and get us press from people like The Chronicle."

Looking at Alternatives

Manfred Kuechler, a sociology professor at CUNY's Hunter College who serves on a technology committee for the university system, said he was optimistic that the technical difficulties with Blackboard had been resolved.

The problems arose this academic year, he said, when the university moved to a centralized Blackboard system for all of its campuses rather than continue to let each campus operate its own. Consequently the software had to serve some 200,000 students, with 6.5 million files.

"Blackboard was supposed to run a stress test last summer and last fall to find out how a system could work of that magnitude," said Mr. Kuechler. "They never delivered on that stress test, and that forced us, in a way, to go to that system and keep our fingers crossed."

He said that CUNY had since changed the way it manages the servers, and that Blackboard officials were now doing more to help out.

Blackboard's growing size, however, is prompting campus technology officials to look at alternatives.

The company recently purchased a rival, Angel Learning, and now sells software to the vast majority of colleges who use course-management systems. The U.S. Department of Justice started an antitrust investigation last month into the impact of the deal on competition.

Mr. Groom argues that the need for course-management systems. or CMS's, may soon diminish, once professors switch to using blogs and other tools.

"I think the model for the CMS is outdated given the new Web, and I think that's one of the problems," he said. "It can serve certain functions well, but it's hard for proprietary CMS's, whatever they are, to keep up with the how the Web is changing."

Blackboard is trying to keep up.

Michael L. Chasen, the company's chief executive, has told The Chronicle that the latest version of the software integrates some Web 2.0 tools and still offers plenty of features that blogging packages can't match, like online gradebooks.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's thread on blogging are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListservRoles.htm

Many colleges have saved a lot of money by shifting from Blackboard and WebCT to open sharing (free) course management systems, especially Moodle --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moodle

Bob Jensen's threads on the history of course management systems are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm

June 3, 2009 reply from Roger Debreceny [roger@DEBRECENY.COM]

The University of Hawai moved recently to Sakai (http://sakaiproject.org/portal) an open source competitor to WebCT and BlackBoard. Having been extensive users of both of those products over the last decade, I found the transition to Sakai (or Laulima, as it is known at UH) extremely easy. Sakai has all the tools of the commercial products and much more.

Moving to Sakai saved UH many, many thousands of dollars.

None of these products, however, will actually force  students to pay attention to class announcements, readings, assignments etc.!

Roger

Blackboard Learns of Many Serious Customer Gripes
At an open "listening session" with top executives of Blackboard here Wednesday at the company's annual conference, college officials expressed frustration with many of the system's fundamental characteristics. At times, the meeting seemed to turn into a communal gripe session, with complaints ranging from the system's discussion forum application, to the improved -- but still lacking -- user support, to the training materials for faculty members. Participants' concerns were often greeted with nods of agreement and outright applause from their peers as they spoke of their frustrations with the system.
Ben Eisen, "A Gripe Session at Blackboard," Inside Higher Ed, July 16, 2009 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/07/16/blackboard

Jensen Comment
Blackboard should've never been allowed by anti-trust officials to buy out WebCT. Nor should it have been granted the vague patent that worries the whole distance education world.

If you hate unregulated monopoly power, you will hate the latest Blackboard acquisition deal

"Blackboard Plans to Buy Another Rival, Angel Learning," by Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Education, May 6, 2009 --- http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=3755&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Blackboard Inc. announced this afternoon that it plans to buy Angel Learning, a rival course-management software company, for $80-million in cash and $15-million in stock, adding to the company's many acquisitions over the last several years.

Both companies have approved the deal, and Blackboard expects the arrangement to become final by the end of May.

Michael L. Chasen, president and chief executive of Blackboard, said in an interview with The Chronicle, that in the short run the combined company plans to continue to sell Angel Learning's software as a separate product, so the 400 colleges and elementary and secondary schools that use it can continue to do so for now. Down the road, the best features of Angel will be folded into Blackboard software, Mr. Chasen said. "There are a number of great features and functionalities from Angel that we would like to incorporate into our long-term product strategy," he said. He added that Angel is popular with community colleges, a market segment that Blackboard is excited to do more business with.

In 2005, Blackboard bought an even bigger competitor, WebCT, for $180-million. And in 2002 Blackboard bought another competing course-management system, called Prometheus, from George Washington University. Last year Blackboard diversified its product line by acquiring the NTI Group, which sells emergency-notification software.

In an interview just a few months ago, Mr. Chasen told The Chronicle that he felt the company had only just recovered from the difficult process of bringing together features from the WebCT and Blackboard products into a common framework. Some customers had complained that the merger was a sometimes rocky road, bringing spotty customer support and confusion over the different product lines.

Mr. Chasen said this week that Blackboard learned many lessons from its purchase of WebCT, and that it expects this latest acquisition to be much smoother as a result.

Ray Henderson, chief products officer for Angel Learning, said in an interview that his company's biggest concern in its early talks with Blackboard officials was whether Blackboard was committed to offering high levels of customer support for Angel's software. "We have been offered reassurances there," Mr. Henderson said.

The deal will mean a windfall for Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, where the Angel software was first developed. In July 2000, the university spun off a company called CyberLearning Labs to sell the software to other institutions. Later the company changed its name to Angel Learning, but the university remains the largest shareholder.

Blackboard wants monopoly power over all distance education --- this is absurd and unjust!

"Blackboard Files Complaint With U.S. International Trade Commission Seeking to Block Sales of a Competitor's Products," by Jeffrey Young, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 23, 2009 --- http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=3730&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

 Blackboard Inc. opened a new front in its battle against rival Desire2Learn this week, filing a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission seeking to block the import of the Canadian company’s products because of alleged patent infringement.

In Blackboard’s filing with the commission, which it submitted on Monday, the company called for an investigation and asked that the body ultimately “halt the importation, marketing, advertising, demonstration, servicing, sale, and use” of Desire2Learn’s course-management system in the United States. Blackboard claims in the filing that Desire2Learn is violating the company’s patent and selling the infringing product in America, in violation of the Tariff Act of 1930.

Within 30 days after such a request is filed, the commission will decide whether to proceed with an investigation, which would be done by one of the body’s six judges, said Peg O’Laughlin, a spokesperson for the commission.

Blackboard’s general counsel, Matthew Small, said that the company also plans to file a patent-infringement lawsuit against Desire2Learn in a Canadian court today or tomorrow.

Blackboard already has two other lawsuits going against Desire2Learn alleging patent infringement. It won one of those cases in a U.S. federal court last year, and the case is under consideration by a federal appeals court. The company filed another complaint last month, alleging infringement of a newer patent.

Diane M. Lank, Desire2Learn’s in-house lawyer, called the moves “frivolous.” “As Blackboard continues these tactics, we’re more and more prepared to deal with them,” she said.

Mr. Small said that Blackboard took its latest actions because Desire2Learn continues to sell versions of its software that Blackboard feels violate its patent.

Last week the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which is reviewing the validity of one of Blackboard’s patents, issued a preliminary ruling that the patent was issued improperly because the invention existed elsewhere before the company filed its claim. The patent remains valid, however, at least until the review is completed and all legal appeals of the decision are heard.

Boycott Blackboard and think Moodle (Moodle is free) --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moodle

July 1, 2009 message from Carolyn Kotlas [kotlas@email.unc.edu]

CRITIQUE OF E-LEARNING IN BLACKBOARD

 "Just as utopic visions of the Internet predicted an egalitarian online world where information flowed freely and power became irrelevant, so did many proponents of online education, who viewed online classrooms as a way to free students and instructors from traditional power relationships . . ."

 In "A Critical Examination of Blackboard's E–Learning Environment"

(FIRST MONDAY, vol. 14, no. 6, June 1, 2009), Stephanie J. Coopman, professor at San Jose State University, identifies the ways that the Blackboard 8.0 and Blackboard CE6 platforms "both constrain and facilitate instructor–student and student–student interaction." She argues that while the systems have improved the instructor's ability to track and measure student activity, this "creates a dangerously decontextualized, essentialized image of a class in which levels of 'participation' stand in for evidence of learning having taken place.

Students are treated not as learners, as partners in an educational enterprise, but as users."

The paper is available at

http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2434/2202

First Monday [ISSN 1396-0466] is an online, peer-reviewed journal whose aim is to publish original articles about the Internet and the global information infrastructure. It is published in cooperation with the University Library, University of Illinois at Chicago. For more information, contact: First Monday, c/o Edward Valauskas, Chief Editor, PO Box 87636, Chicago IL 60680-0636 USA; email: ejv@uic.edu; Web:

http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/

"Blackboard 9.0," by Elizabeth Redden, Inside Higher Ed, January 27, 2009 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/01/27/blackboard

Blackboard Inc., the giant among course management system (CMS) providers, today unveils Release 9.0 of Blackboard Learn. Blackboard bills the newest iteration as more open and flexible — allowing colleges to use the platform “as an open foundation for whatever complementary technologies they need to support their approach to teaching and learning.”

And the new release will feature expanded Web 2.0 and “social learning” tools, such as blogs and journals, enhanced notification capabilities (i.e., “Your paper is due in four hours” – or four days), and a redesigned, customizable user interface.

“It would definitely be an immediate, apparent change when you log into the system,” said Jessica Finnefrock, Blackboard’s senior vice president for product development.

Among the changes that will be most immediately noticeable to students and professors, aside from the redesigned, Web 2.0 interface, are the new notifications. “Probably one of the No. 1 things I heard from students is, ‘We need to more clearly manage the things that are due,’ ” said Finnefrock. She explained that the notifications for pending assignments will be visible as “dashboards” on the Blackboard site, and students can also elect to receive reminders via e-mail and, yes, Facebook (Blackboard launched a Facebook application last May). “In these focus groups, sometimes students will say, ‘I’ll log onto Blackboard and when I log in I realize my assignment was due that day. Can’t Blackboard send me something?’ ”

Students can choose when (how far in advance) and for what they’d like to receive alerts. Finnefrock said the company plans to continue expanding its notification capabilities in the future to include things like text messages and iPhone applications.

The newest version also features the SafeAssign plagiarism detection software bundled in, as opposed to it being available as an add-on. And it includes integrations to allow open-source course management systems — such as Sakai and Moodle, to which colleges have increasingly been gravitating — to be accessed within Blackboard.

While Blackboard prices change from year to year, a spokesman said that the new release has no bearing on the price structure. Colleges holding Blackboard licenses can upgrade to the 9.0 version at no extra cost; Finnefrock said she expects many institutions will pilot the new version this spring and summer and fully launch it come fall.

Blackboard declined to release the full list of universities that have been doing Beta testing for confidentiality reasons, but recommended three institutions that are now in the piloting or co-production phase. Two could be reached; both officials described only minor problems, and general satisfaction with the updated software.

Donna Wicks, senior system administrator for Blackboard at Kettering University, in Michigan, said that, in addition to the notification systems, she’s particularly impressed by the new look and ability to customize the site. “Not that the old Blackboard is terrible, but it looks out of date. This new version, it’s just, it’s a cleaner look.… I’ve been able to do more with our log-in page. I’ve really customized it. I don’t feel like I’m at a Blackboard site when I go to the page. I feel like it’s a Kettering page that’s been built.”

Lonnie Harvel, vice president of educational technology at Georgia Gwinnett College, said he was particularly pleased by the “mashup” quality of the new release — in other words, the ability to import other systems into Blackboard (and export, too). “The interface is more of a robust, portaling environment that is allowing us to bring more services from outside the Blackboard toolset into that environment,” he said. For instance, “with the new environment, I can simply connect it to my campus announcement system.... It’s all a matter of being able to weave the different information sources together in one place.”

Moving forward, Harvel said Blackboard has the daunting task of keeping two very different constituencies happy — long-time Blackboard users and clients of its old competitor WebCT, which Blackboard bought in 2005. Individuals could be religious in their original preferences, said Harvel (who described himself as an agnostic in that debate). “I think that will probably be one of the biggest challenges that Blackboard has to struggle with, bringing these two platforms together.... They’re going to be dealing with two different sets of expectations.”

Continued in article

If you absolutely despise Blackboard's attempts to get royalties from every distance education course in the world, even if it does not use Blackboard, you've gotta love this one if Blackboard loses in court

"Blackboard Sues U.S. Patent Office," by Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Education, December 2, 2008 ---
http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=3494&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Just when you thought the patent fight over course-management software couldn’t get any more confusing, Blackboard Inc. went to federal court to sue the United States Patent and Trademark Office, seeking to overturn a recent decision concerning Blackboard’s controversial patent on course-management software.

The issue at stake is who decides whether or not Blackboard’s patent is valid. Right now the patent is being challenged on two fronts:

 
• Front one is the courts. Blackboard sued its biggest competitor, Desire2Learn, arguing that the Canada-based company violated Blackboard’s patent with its course-management software. On that front Blackboard is winning. In march a federal jury in Texas awarded Blackboard $3.1-million, finding that Desire2Learn did infringe the company’s patent. Desire2Learn has appealed the decision, and it modified its software in response to the court decision.

   

• Front two is the patent office’s own review process. Desire2Learn has challenged the validity of Blackboard’s patent, and the office is working through a formal reexamination of it. On this front Desire2Learn is winning big. In an initial ruling issued this year, the patent office struck down all 44 claims in the Blackboard patent.
   

Blackboard clearly wants the final decision to rest with the courts, where it has received the most favorable verdicts. Its new lawsuit, filed late last month against the patent office and Jon W. Dudas, the office’s director, seeks to overturn the patent office’s recent decision to continue its review of the patent’s validity while the court challenge goes on. Blackboard argues that once a court ruling about a patent is issued, the patent office should end any reexamination of that patent. The patent office has ruled that its reexamination will only end once a final verdict in court is issued, meaning only after all possible appeals are pursued.

Michael Feldstein, a blogger who has been tracking the Blackboard patent battle, argues that Blackboard’s latest action muddies the company’s efforts to display a greater willingness to make its software work with that of competitors. For instance, Blackboard has announced that future releases of its course-management software will allow colleges to synchronize with Sakai and with Moodle, two open-source alternatives.

“Regardless of the legal merits, the fact that Blackboard continues to assert the patent heavily undermines their new marketing message of openness,” wrote Mr. Feldstein. “I don’t understand why they still think this strategy is a winner.”

But Bruce Wieder, a partner with the Washington law firm Dow Lohnes who is watching the case, said that Blackboard’s latest move was not that unusual. “It’s not typical, but it’s not outrageous,” he said.

Blackboard issued a statement today saying that its latest action is “not an effort to stop the overall re-examination,” and that the company “remains confident in the re-examination process.” Company officials could not be reached for further comment.

Diane M. Lank, Desire2Learn’s in-house lawyer, said in an interview Tuesday that “it is rather clear that Blackboard doesn’t like the patent office since the reexamination started.”

Reconsidering Blackboard
The dominant — and domineering — provider of course-management software has become the company that many campus-technology officials love to hate, especially when it raises prices. Now more colleges are looking at free, open-source alternatives. But Blackboard promises that its new Next Generation software will keep the company ahead of competitors.

"Blackboard Customers Consider Alternatives: Open-source software for course management poses market challenge," by Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 12, 2008 --- http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i03/03a00103.htm?utm_source=wb&utm_medium=en

Matthew Henry, programming-services manager at LeTourneau University, sat near the front of a ballroom with his arms crossed, ready to watch a multimedia preview of Blackboard Inc.'s next course-management system.

He arrived here in July for the company's annual user conference with more than a few complaints about the company. Its service is poor, he said, its behavior toward competitors is overly aggressive, and its fast growth in recent years has distracted it from supporting the product that helped make it a giant in the usually quiet world of college software.

Blackboard has become the Microsoft of higher-education technology, say many campus-technology officials, and they don't mean the comparison as a compliment. To them the company is not only big but also pushy, and many of them love to hate it.

Mr. Henry's mission here, as he waited with four colleagues from LeTourneau, was to determine whether the company's software remains the best choice to run the Texas university's course Web pages, online discussion boards, digital gradebooks, and other teaching tools, which have become as standard as physical whiteboards on college campuses.

New software called Blackboard NG, for Next Generation, is supposed to keep the company a step ahead and keep people such as Mr. Henry as customers. The user conference was its first public display. "I'm anxious to see whether Blackboard NG is just hype or something that's going to solve our problems" with the company, said Mr. Henry, as the lights dimmed for the presentation.

LeTourneau's contract with Blackboard ends this year, and campus officials may join the growing number of colleges switching to Moodle, a free, open-source course-management system, or Sakai, another free program. Those systems have grown feature-rich enough to pose serious challenges to Blackboard. Giants like the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of California at Los Angeles, along with smaller colleges, like Louisiana State University at Shreveport, have made the jump.

"There are a lot of institutions right now that are upset with Blackboard, to say the least, and looking for alternatives," says Michael Zastrocky, vice president for research at Gartner Inc., a consulting firm that tracks trends in higher-education technology. "They caused a backlash that's been very difficult for them to overcome."

Blackboard is heading for a showdown with the free-software movement, according to some observers. Although Blackboard remains the clear market leader — about 66 percent of American colleges use its software as their standard, says the Campus Computing Project, an annual survey — there are signs that open-source alternatives are starting to gain ground. The survey found that the proportion of colleges using Moodle as their standard rose from 4.2 percent in 2006 to 7.8 percent in 2007, and that about 3 percent of colleges have selected Sakai. A recent survey by the Instructional Technology Council, which promotes distance learning, found that the proportion of its member colleges using Moodle jumped from 4 percent last year to more than 10 percent this year. The proportion using Blackboard fell slightly.

Blackboard's leaders say they see no sign of an exodus to commercial or open-source rivals. "There's not more people leaving now than there were yesterday," said Blackboard's chief executive, Michael L. Chasen, in an interview this summer in the company's new corporate offices, in Washington, where the brightly lit white corridors and modern accents in staff lounges make it look a bit like a Star Trek starship.

Growing Goliath

How big is Blackboard? Three years ago it acquired its major rival, WebCT, solidifying its dominance of the course-management market. The company has also bought other companies in recent years, including the NTI Group, which makes emergency-notification software, and Xythos Software, which makes content-management programs.

How pushy is it? Blackboard claimed a patent on processes that many college officials say were already in widespread use. After the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted the patent, in 2006, Blackboard sued a leading rival, Desire2Learn, claiming infringement. Many saw the move as trying to bully a competitor. (A federal judge found in favor of Blackboard, although the decision has been appealed).

Such tactics are common in other business sectors, says Trace A. Urdan, an education-industry analyst with Signal Hill, an investment firm, but not in the world of college software. "They're sharks operating in this universe where you don't see a lot of sharks," he says of Blackboard's leaders. For him that is a compliment. "They're smart," he says.

Mr. Urdan argues that the legal battle has probably caused enough uncertainty about Desire2Learn's future to scare off larger software companies who might otherwise have considered buying it and turning it into a more serious competitor.

Colleges say they have reason for concern about Blackboard's growing dominance. Their biggest fear is that the company will jack up prices once colleges have become reliant on its products. As one of Sakai's founders, Bradley Wheeler, chief information officer at Indiana University, puts it, "When switching costs get high, you can raise the rent."

Blackboard officials have attempted to calm such concerns and to convince colleges that it is a good partner. Two years ago, after the higher-education technology group Educause took the unusual step of issuing a statement criticizing the company's behavior over the patent, Blackboard's leaders held a town-hall session at Educause's annual conference to answer questions and listen as college officials vented.

But some of those college leaders say the company's ways haven't significantly changed since then.

"That's the first thing that comes to people's mind when you come to Blackboard — its lawsuit," says Stephen G. Landry, chief information officer at Seton Hall University, which uses Blackboard. "I don't like working with a company that seems to spend as much money on legal and financial folks as they do on developers."

So now that open-source options are ready for prime time, many colleges are taking a cold, hard look at the price, reliability, and features of Moodle and Sakai.

Hidden Costs

Price seems like an obvious advantage of open-source software. After all, it is free. But officials say open-source programs can end up costing just as much as, or even more than, Blackboard's software when staff time is taken into account. It all depends on how much customization a college wants, or how many features it needs.

"The software is free, but you have to buy the computers to put it on, and you have to buy a development team to move it forward," says Donna Crystal Llewellyn, director of the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning at Georgia Tech, which recently switched from WebCT to Sakai. Saving money was not the goal, she says, adding that the university already had a staff of programmers to tackle the challenge.

"Our faculty are very techno-savvy," she says. "They always think they can do something better than someone else that's already put it in a box."

But many smaller colleges say price was indeed a major reason to move away from Blackboard.

"They continued to raise the prices," says Scott Hardwick, assistant director of information-technology services on Louisiana State's Shreveport campus, which a few years ago gave up Blackboard for Moodle.

"Had we continued paying what Blackboard wanted us to pay, it probably would have been $100,000 a year," he says. Now the university pays only about $5,000 a year to an outside company that provides support for the Moodle software. "It's definitely cheaper," says Mr. Hardwick, even considering the time he spends on maintenance.

Professors, too, at Shreveport have been pleased with Moodle. The only complaint Mr. Hardwick says he has heard is that Moodle's user interface doesn't look as slick as Blackboard's. "I'm like, 'Seriously, that's your complaint? It doesn't look as slick?' Apparently that's a huge deal for people."

Blackboard's chief executive, Mr. Chasen, defended his company's prices. "I don't think that we're too expensive," he said in the interview. "Compared to other enterprise software, we're a fraction of the cost." There's a good chance, he said, that colleges "bought their human-resources package for a million dollars."

A Supportive Environment

The downside of open-source software is that because it is free, there's no one company to call if things go wrong. But the downside of buying a commercial program is that if its maker provides poor support, it's hard to get under the hood yourself to make a fix.

Blackboard has a history of poor support, according to many college officials.

"Support in the past has certainly been a challenge for us," Mr. Chasen acknowledged. He blamed the company's rapid growth. "We went from 100 clients to now over 5,000 clients in a relatively short time, and support is one of those areas that lagged behind."

The company recently hired an outside firm as part of an effort to improve its customer service. "We're on the way to answering it," said Mr. Chasen. "We know that support is improving. Is it there yet? No, we still have a long way to go. But over the next few months, you'll start to see significant improvements across the board."

Some colleges running open-source programs initially had concerns about whether free software could be scaled to provide Web sites and services for thousands of courses on large campuses. But UCLA recently decided to use Moodle across the campus, and things are going smoothly as it adds about 900 course Web sites on the system per quarter, says Rosemary Rocchio, director of academic applications in the office of information technoogy there.

But the university has plenty of programmers to handle issues that crop up, she notes. "If you're a small university, and you don't have IT staff, then open source isn't a great solution," she says. "I don't think it's one size fits all."

Innovation as Attraction

The biggest benefit of open-source software, say many observers, is that if a college wants a new feature, it can simply build it, since the entire program code is open. When a college adds a new feature, it shares the code with everyone else using the software.

Blackboard's Mr. Chasen argued that there are benefits to the corporate model of software publishing, too. "I have 300 people on my development team working full time on our products and services," he said. "I don't know if there are 300 full-time people currently working on Sakai. Maybe there are. I have a multimillion-dollar hardware-testing lab just to test scalability."

"At a minimum," he said, "we are at least just as innovative as open source."

Michael Korcuska, executive director of the Sakai Foundation, a nonprofit group that coordinates the use of the open-source software, argues that the open-source model is quicker to react to needs of colleges than Blackboard is. "The people doing the work and deciding what features go in the system are sitting on campus next to the users, not in some back office somewhere," he says.

But Mr. Urdan, the industry analyst, says fine-tuning software is a "luxury" that most colleges can't afford. The slight improvements are often not worth the man-hours and dollar costs of adopting them, he says.

The Next Generation

Many of those arguments, users say, will be settled by the performance of Blackboard's new product.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on the history of course authoring and management technologies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm

"Moving (usually from Blackboard or WebCT) to Moodle:  Reflections Two Years Later," by Ining Tracy Chaw, Educause Quarterly, Number 3, 2008 --- http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/EQM0837.pdf

Blackboard Announces Free Tool to Interconnect Its Software With Moodle, an Open-Source Competitor," by Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 28, 2008 --- Click Here

Bob Jensen's threads on Blackboard, WebCT, and Moodle --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Blackboard.htm

"Blackboard Announces Free Tool to Interconnect Its Software With Moodle, an Open-Source Competitor," by Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 28, 2008 --- Click Here

Blackboard has taken another step toward making the next version of its course-management system work alongside open-source competitors. The company announced today that it is working with Iowa State University to create a software plug-in for the company’s course-management system so that it can integrate with Moodle, a popular open-source alternative. The move comes just three months after the company announced the creation of a similar connection tool for Sakai, another open-source course-management system.

The new software tool, called the Learning Environment Connector for Moodle, will let students access course Web sites created with Moodle from within the Blackboard software interface. The goal is to let students see all of their course information in one space, regardless of which software was used to produce the Web pages. “They’ll have a single place to sign on to get to our Blackboard presence and our Moodle presence,” said Randal Dalhoff, assistant director of academic technologies for Iowa State University’s Information Technology Services, in an interview.

The tools are designed to work with the next versions of the company’s software, which it is calling Blackboard NG, for next generation. College officials expect the first of those versions to come out early next year, although Blackboard officials have not announced a release date. Iowa State has been given an early copy of Blackboard’s forthcoming software so that its programmers could build the tool. Mr. Dalhoff said the university would give the Connector software free to any college that wants it.

He said Blackboard officials had asked the university earlier this year if it would be interested in taking on the project, and university officials decided to do so. “To me it’s the thrill of putting something together, and as programmers we thought this would be a fun project to do,” he said.

Some colleges have expressed skepticism at Blackboard’s move to link with open-source platforms, in part because of the aggressive tactics the company has taken against commercial competitors. The company successfully sued one of those competitors, Desire2Learn, for for violating Blackboard’s patent on a system of delivering course materials online, though some college officials feel the patent is overly broad. The patent office is reviewing whether the patent was issued properly, which depends in part on whether other colleges or companies were already using similar technology before Blackboard filed for its patent.

“I’m not a Blackboard advocate, but I’m not a Blackboard putter-downer either,” said Mr. Dalhoff. “We’re not tied to Blackboard. If some day something really came out that is better, or prices got out of range, who knows what we might do?”

A couple of departments at the university already use Moodle, he said, even though the central IT department does not officially support it. Most professors at the university use Blackboard.

No one course-management system is best for every department or for every professor, said Mr. Dalhoff. “Having a choice will be better for campuses than really settling on one.”

"Jury Sides With Blackboard in Patent Case," by Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed, February 25, 2008 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/02/25/blackboard

A federal jury in Texas on Friday awarded the learning services giant Blackboard $3.1 million in its patent infringement lawsuit against a much smaller competitor, adding a new layer of complexity and uncertainty to a complex, uncertain market for higher education learning management systems.

The July 2006 lawsuit, closely watched (and much-derided by many) in the higher education technology world, accused the Canadian company Desire2Learn of infringing dozens of Blackboard patents for online course management and e-learning technologies. Blackboard sought $17 million in damages and an injunction barring Desire2Learn from continuing to infringe the patent. Blackboard came under heavy fire from campus technology officials, including a rare rebuke from Educause, higher education’s main technology association, for asserting the company’s patent rights to technologies that many argued were simple and longstanding technologies in wide use by corporate and open source learning systems.

After a two-week trial in Lufkin, Tex., and just a few hours of deliberation, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (which is seen as being friendly to patent holders) agreed with Blackboard that Desire2Learn’s learning platform uses technologies for which Blackboard received U.S. patents in January 2006. But its verdict gave the company far less than it was asking for, awarding Blackboard $2.5 million for lost profits and $630,000 in royalties.

In addition, the verdict allows the company to petition the judge in the case, Ron Clark, for an injunction against further patent infringement that would force Desire2Learn either to alter its products or to stop selling them to new customers in the United States.

In a statement via e-mail (but not posted on the company’s Web site), Blackboard’s president and CEO, Michael Chasen, said officials were “pleased that the jury recognized the importance of our contribution to e-Learning. We look forward to continuing to innovate and invest in new technologies that help education institutions around the globe improve teaching and learning.”

The statement also contained a statement in which Blackboard’s chief legal officer, Matthew Small, appeared to reiterate to fearful supporters of open source learning systems (such as Moodle and Sakai) that the company did not plan to pursue similar infringement claims against non-commercial competitors. “We also continue to stand behind our Patent Pledge which covers this patent and reflects our ongoing commitment to interoperating with and supporting the evolution of open source and home-grown systems,” Small said.

Desire2Learn officials, in a letter to customers, expressed disappointment with the jury verdict, but vowed to continue to oppose Blackboard’s patent enforcement efforts, not only to “defend ourselves vigorously” but to “stand up against Blackboard ... in the best interest of the entire educational community,” in the words of John Baker, the company’s president and CEO. Desire2Learn noted that the jury’s verdict was only one step in a multipronged process, that will include not just the likelihood of legal appeals but a continuing review of the legitimacy of Desire2Learn’s patents by the U.S. Patent Office.

The blogosphere, which tilts heavily against Blackboard on virtually any and all issues, took a generally dim view of the jury’s verdict. Some commentators sought to play down the significance of the jury’s verdict, noting that it gave Blackboard less than it had sought and that Desire2Learn’s patent is still under review by the U.S. patent office.

But others expressed fear that Blackboard would soon go after other commercial learning management software providers like Angel, and wondered whether Blackboard would abide by its pledge not to take aim at the open source systems that appear to be gaining ground against Blackboard, especially Moodle. Commentators generally agreed that the implications of the case won’t be clear for some time.

“It will take weeks, if not months, to sort out the fallout from the jury ruling yesterday in the Blackboard Inc. v. Desire2learn Inc. case,” Alfred H. Essa, associate vice chancellor and deputy chief information officer of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system, wrote on his blog  The Nose. “Although all is not lost, this is a crushing blow to Desire2Learn, one of the few remaining commercial competitors to Blackboard in the higher education LMS market.”

The good news is that the Patent Office is taking a new look at Blackboard's controversial patent.

Question
What next in course management since Blackboard is taking aim at its own foot?

September 18, 2007 message from Peters, James M [jpeters@NMHU.EDU]

Our (small and poor) University is looking at alternative to Blackboard to support both local and internet classes. I recall that this issue was discussed recently on this list and was wondering if any of you would be willing to provide some short statements about alternative products to Blackboard and your assessment of them. Bluntly, the merger between Blackboard and WebCt was, in my opinion, a disaster for the consumer. The existing Blackboard product is full of programming bugs and I would like to be able to go to the committee on which I serve with viable options to switching. However, the State of New Mexico also is looking into standardizing a product state-wide and so the alternatives need to be viable for larger Universities as well.

Any thoughts or comments would be welcome. Since I haven't used this list much, if there is an old archive of threaded discussions I can review that would be useful as well.

Thanks.

Jim Peters, PhD
Associate Professor of Accounting
School of Business
213 Sininger Hall
New Mexico Highlands University
Las Vegas, NM 87701

October 8, 2007 message from Allen M. Ford, MBA, MSSE, MFA [amfnbt@RIT.EDU]

My two cents: The Business Studies Department at NTID offers a variety of courses through the moodle platform set up on a local server. I find it a very attractive alternative to Bb and Desire2Learn (current RIT standard) in that it handles larger files (think DB) and is extremely instructor friendly. While I do "train" and help faculty set up courses, I find that once they learn how easy and intuitive it is, they require minimal hand-holding. In the past five years we have had no server related issues...upgrades require minimal techie intervention. In comparison with my experience teaching COB DL courses using Desire2Learn, if it were my decision, I would use moodle.

That said, I would encourage faculty to investigate what online resources are available from publishers. During a current textbook process, Wiley's EZ-Plus impressed the committee with its CMS that are content specific and ready to roll. Check it out at: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Brand/id-31.html

September 18, reply from Del DeVries [devriesd@MAIL.BELMONT.EDU]

The "what next" question that is most interesting to me is what technology is compelling for engaging students in learning? If I use Skype for online office hours, I believe that I am more accessible to students AND the opportunity for easy voice / chat / file transfer are good for solving some student problems. I can use Camtasia to create audio/video Flash demo's to illustrate a "how-to". Both Skype and Camtasia are good for communicating with students who may not physically show up in my office. But what are the other possibilities that are both cost effective, time effective, AND work to engage student learning?

The AECM (and Bob Jenson's archive of links) are a virtual treasure chest of idea's over the years. Today's students are very comfortable with wireless laptops, enhanced phones, and general savy for social networking with Facebook, etc. But at the end of the day I'm still asking the question of what technologies would be useful for engaging with tomorrow's (and today's) students.

 

Dr. Del DeVries, CPA, CISA
Assistant Professor of Accounting & Information Systems
College of Business Administration
Belmont University 1900 Belmont Blvd Nashville, TN 37212 615-460-6930

Reply from Bob Jensen on September 18, 2007

Hi Del and Jim,

When there is an unregulated monopoly, expect both prices and patent infringement suits to skyrocket. Blackboard should've never been allowed to buy WebCT. My threads on Blackboard are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Blackboard.htm

There are various competitors to Blackboard competitors, many of whom have been involved in lawsuits with Blackboard and WebCT. Many of these competitors (e.g., Sakai, Moodle, and ATutor) are listed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackboard_Inc
Some schools with severe funding problems use Moodle.

The expense of Blackboard, and all of these alternatives, in fact is much more than licensing fees. The expensive problem is the technical support staff needed to both maintain the servers (these systems have their own servers) and to train users of the system, students and staff. This is an expense that never ends. Most importantly there must be relatively expensive backup systems. Servers crash and burn. If courses across a campus become dependent on those servers, it is vital to have backup systems that can be shifted into gear almost immediately. This is where IT staff become crucial.

Of course Blackboard and other vendors like eCollege can take all the IT headaches off campus. This is something I recommend for smaller colleges, but it is more expensive in some ways and cheaper in others considering the expensive and specialized IT skills needed to maintain servers and backup systems.

Below is a virtual-office-hours tidbit for the September 28 edition of Tidbits.  I wouldn't describe virtual office hours as a competitor to Blackboard as much as it addresses Del's question of “What next?” However, at Harvard this is “What now?” Various "What next?" scenarios are listed at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm

There are many other “what next?” possibilities, the most important of which will be a joint effort (academe, standard setters, and industry) to develop massive Wiki-like and YouTube-like knowledge bases filled with pedagogical videos, spreadsheets, and hyperlinks on almost any accounting, auditing, and systems topic imaginable. These probably will be somewhat more secure than Wikipedia/YouTube, but it still will be in the open sharing and development spirit. I’m constantly amazed at the immense (over a billion) number of modules in Wikipedia that just grew and grew. My experience is that most of the modules are excellent except for some politically sensitive topics and highly specialized topics in technical disciplines.

This is why Camtasia is so important. More and more we will see YouTube-like videos that can be used tot take over more and more where the classroom leaves off. See some of the Acct 5341 and Acct5342 illustrations at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/ (I’m not quite sure why I downloaded the Astaire-Powel and BravoAmerica videos in  this folder a long, long time ago --- Dah!)

In the future, instructors can focus more on motivation to learn and underlying theory while leaving the technical explanations to the knowledge bases where technical explanations and illustrations can be played over and over again and again until they are understood by users. This of course is very frightening to many instructors who are practiced at explaining technical modules and lousy at explaining underlying theory.

The searching will be partly like XBRL if the knowledge base items have XML tags and eventually, as Jagdish points out, Semantic Web searching --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/XBRLandOLAP.htm

It never ceases to amaze me how much knowledge is already available in Wikipedia and YouTube. These are open sharing knowledge bases to be used with caution and suspicion. But they are unbelievably vast in terms of history and, in the case of Wikipedia, full of reference links and highly informative user discussions. Knowledge has become so vast that it boggles our minds. Rather than be scholars filled with facts and figures, we will become scholars who can tap into facts, figures, and knowledge-base explanations that we’re educated enough to comprehend on an as-needed basis.

I can’t remember how to do half the things I put into Camtasia videos (especially in my MS Access videos), but I play them back once or twice and it all makes sense again. What an aid to me these videos are whenever I have to teach something in Access, Excel, XBRL, intangible assets valuation, etc. If only others in the academy would see fit to freely share their Camtasia videos. Sigh!

Anybody interested in developing Camtasia videos might look at my PowerPoint file on Camtasia at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/EdTech/PowerPoint/

Bob Jensen

Blackboard message threads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Blackboard.htm#Blackboard

The near-monopoly of course management systems since 1994 has been Blackboard (Bb) since Bb was allowed by the Government to buy out its WebCT arch competitor --- http://www.blackboard.com/us/index.Bb

Open Sharing Threat:  Let's Hope the Blackboard Monopolist Loses This One
The opening gavel sounded this week in a trial that is being closely watched by college and university technology officials -- a patent dispute between Blackboard Inc., which has become the giant of the education-software sector, and a smaller Canadian company called Desire2Learn. Blackboard had filed for the patent, which covers its e-learning software, in 1999. Critics say the patent is too broad and could be construed as covering many aspects of classroom software. If the patent holds up, they say, colleges that create their own course-management systems could be vulnerable to similar lawsuits. The Chronicle offers coverage of the opening arguments in the case, and the article is free even to non-subscribers.
Chronicle of Higher Education, February 13, 2008  --- http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=2741&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Bob Jensen's threads on Blackboard are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Blackboard.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on the history of course authoring and management systems are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on education technology and distance education are linked at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm

February 25, 2008 Update

"Jury Sides With Blackboard in Patent Case," by Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed, February 25, 2008 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/02/25/blackboard

A federal jury in Texas on Friday awarded the learning services giant Blackboard $3.1 million in its patent infringement lawsuit against a much smaller competitor, adding a new layer of complexity and uncertainty to a complex, uncertain market for higher education learning management systems.

The July 2006 lawsuit, closely watched (and much-derided by many) in the higher education technology world, accused the Canadian company Desire2Learn of infringing dozens of Blackboard patents for online course management and e-learning technologies. Blackboard sought $17 million in damages and an injunction barring Desire2Learn from continuing to infringe the patent. Blackboard came under heavy fire from campus technology officials, including a rare rebuke from Educause, higher education’s main technology association, for asserting the company’s patent rights to technologies that many argued were simple and longstanding technologies in wide use by corporate and open source learning systems.

After a two-week trial in Lufkin, Tex., and just a few hours of deliberation, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (which is seen as being friendly to patent holders) agreed with Blackboard that Desire2Learn’s learning platform uses technologies for which Blackboard received U.S. patents in January 2006. But its verdict gave the company far less than it was asking for, awarding Blackboard $2.5 million for lost profits and $630,000 in royalties.

In addition, the verdict allows the company to petition the judge in the case, Ron Clark, for an injunction against further patent infringement that would force Desire2Learn either to alter its products or to stop selling them to new customers in the United States.

In a statement via e-mail (but not posted on the company’s Web site), Blackboard’s president and CEO, Michael Chasen, said officials were “pleased that the jury recognized the importance of our contribution to e-Learning. We look forward to continuing to innovate and invest in new technologies that help education institutions around the globe improve teaching and learning.”

The statement also contained a statement in which Blackboard’s chief legal officer, Matthew Small, appeared to reiterate to fearful supporters of open source learning systems (such as Moodle and Sakai) that the company did not plan to pursue similar infringement claims against non-commercial competitors. “We also continue to stand behind our Patent Pledge which covers this patent and reflects our ongoing commitment to interoperating with and supporting the evolution of open source and home-grown systems,” Small said.

Desire2Learn officials, in a letter to customers, expressed disappointment with the jury verdict, but vowed to continue to oppose Blackboard’s patent enforcement efforts, not only to “defend ourselves vigorously” but to “stand up against Blackboard ... in the best interest of the entire educational community,” in the words of John Baker, the company’s president and CEO. Desire2Learn noted that the jury’s verdict was only one step in a multipronged process, that will include not just the likelihood of legal appeals but a continuing review of the legitimacy of Desire2Learn’s patents by the U.S. Patent Office.

The blogosphere, which tilts heavily against Blackboard on virtually any and all issues, took a generally dim view of the jury’s verdict. Some commentators sought to play down the significance of the jury’s verdict, noting that it gave Blackboard less than it had sought and that Desire2Learn’s patent is still under review by the U.S. patent office.

But others expressed fear that Blackboard would soon go after other commercial learning management software providers like Angel, and wondered whether Blackboard would abide by its pledge not to take aim at the open source systems that appear to be gaining ground against Blackboard, especially Moodle. Commentators generally agreed that the implications of the case won’t be clear for some time.

“It will take weeks, if not months, to sort out the fallout from the jury ruling yesterday in the Blackboard Inc. v. Desire2learn Inc. case,” Alfred H. Essa, associate vice chancellor and deputy chief information officer of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system, wrote on his blog  The Nose. “Although all is not lost, this is a crushing blow to Desire2Learn, one of the few remaining commercial competitors to Blackboard in the higher education LMS market.”

Question
What's next in course management since Blackboard is taking aim at its own foot with monopoly pricing?

Bob Jensen's threads on alternatives to Blackboard --- See below!

Updates on Moodle --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm#Moodle

Updates on Sloodle and Second Life (virtual world learning) --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#SecondLife
The above link includes accounting education applications of Second Life.

September 18, 2007 message from Peters, James M [jpeters@NMHU.EDU]

Our (small and poor) University is looking at alternative to Blackboard to support both local and internet classes. I recall that this issue was discussed recently on this list and was wondering if any of you would be willing to provide some short statements about alternative products to Blackboard and your assessment of them. Bluntly, the merger between Blackboard and WebCt was, in my opinion, a disaster for the consumer. The existing Blackboard product is full of programming bugs and I would like to be able to go to the committee on which I serve with viable options to switching. However, the State of New Mexico also is looking into standardizing a product state-wide and so the alternatives need to be viable for larger Universities as well.

Any thoughts or comments would be welcome. Since I haven't used this list much, if there is an old archive of threaded discussions I can review that would be useful as well.

Thanks.

Jim Peters, PhD
Associate Professor of Accounting
School of Business
213 Sininger Hall
New Mexico Highlands University
Las Vegas, NM 87701

October 8, 2007 message from Allen M. Ford, MBA, MSSE, MFA [amfnbt@RIT.EDU]

My two cents: The Business Studies Department at NTID offers a variety of courses through the moodle platform set up on a local server. I find it a very attractive alternative to Bb and Desire2Learn (current RIT standard) in that it handles larger files (think DB) and is extremely instructor friendly. While I do "train" and help faculty set up courses, I find that once they learn how easy and intuitive it is, they require minimal hand-holding. In the past five years we have had no server related issues...upgrades require minimal techie intervention. In comparison with my experience teaching COB DL courses using Desire2Learn, if it were my decision, I would use moodle.

That said, I would encourage faculty to investigate what online resources are available from publishers. During a current textbook process, Wiley's EZ-Plus impressed the committee with its CMS that are content specific and ready to roll. Check it out at: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Brand/id-31.html

September 18, reply from Del DeVries [devriesd@MAIL.BELMONT.EDU]

The "what next" question that is most interesting to me is what technology is compelling for engaging students in learning? If I use Skype for online office hours, I believe that I am more accessible to students AND the opportunity for easy voice / chat / file transfer are good for solving some student problems. I can use Camtasia to create audio/video Flash demo's to illustrate a "how-to". Both Skype and Camtasia are good for communicating with students who may not physically show up in my office. But what are the other possibilities that are both cost effective, time effective, AND work to engage student learning?

The AECM (and Bob Jenson's archive of links) are a virtual treasure chest of idea's over the years. Today's students are very comfortable with wireless laptops, enhanced phones, and general savy for social networking with Facebook, etc. But at the end of the day I'm still asking the question of what technologies would be useful for engaging with tomorrow's (and today's) students.

 

Dr. Del DeVries, CPA, CISA
Assistant Professor of Accounting & Information Systems
College of Business Administration
Belmont University 1900 Belmont Blvd Nashville, TN 37212 615-460-6930

Reply from Bob Jensen on September 18, 2007

Hi Del and Jim,

When there is an unregulated monopoly, expect both prices and patent infringement suits to skyrocket. Blackboard should've never been allowed to buy WebCT. My threads on Blackboard are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Blackboard.htm

There are various competitors to Blackboard competitors, many of whom have been involved in lawsuits with Blackboard and WebCT. Many of these competitors (e.g., Sakai, Moodle, and ATutor) are listed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackboard_Inc
Some schools with severe funding problems use Moodle.

Moodle Homepage --- http://moodle.org/ The good news is that Moodle is free. A lot of colleges, especially small colleges, changed to Moodle after Blackboard commenced monopoly pricing. You can track Moodle News (the good, the bad, and the ugly) at http://eduspaces.net/moodlenews/weblog/160022.html Moodle purportedly is very flexible, in part, because it has open source coding. Many of the positives are outlined at http://moodle.com/ There is also a help desk. Like many open source options, including Open Source Office, Moodle keeps getting better and better. Old criticisms may no longer be applicable. I recently gave an education technology workshop for accounting educators in Mississippi. Many of the users were happy with Moodle. And there's Sloodle for open source virtual learning software --- http://www.sloodle.com/ December 4, 2007 message from Vidya Second Life is a 3D virtual environment and in that regard not a competitor to Moodle at all. Sloodle is actually the Moodle counterpart to courses taught in Second Life and in that sense it's symbiotic relationship of sorts between the 3D immersive virtual environment and astandard 2D learning environment :-). Vidya Ananthanarayanan Instructional Support Manager Center for Learning and Technology Trinity University vidya@trinity.com/210.999.7346| http://www.trinity.edu/clt

The expense of Blackboard, and all of these alternatives, in fact is much more than licensing fees. The expensive problem is the technical support staff needed to both maintain the servers (these systems have their own servers) and to train users of the system, students and staff. This is an expense that never ends. Most importantly there must be relatively expensive backup systems. Servers crash and burn. If courses across a campus become dependent on those servers, it is vital to have backup systems that can be shifted into gear almost immediately. This is where IT staff become crucial.

Of course Blackboard and other vendors like eCollege can take all the IT headaches off campus. This is something I recommend for smaller colleges, but it is more expensive in some ways and cheaper in others considering the expensive and specialized IT skills needed to maintain servers and backup systems.

Below is a virtual-office-hours tidbit for the September 28 edition of Tidbits.  I wouldn't describe virtual office hours as a competitor to Blackboard as much as it addresses Del's question of “What next?” However, at Harvard this is “What now?” Various "What next?" scenarios are listed at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm

There are many other “what next?” possibilities, the most important of which will be a joint effort (academe, standard setters, and industry) to develop massive Wiki-like and YouTube-like knowledge bases filled with pedagogical videos, spreadsheets, and hyperlinks on almost any accounting, auditing, and systems topic imaginable. These probably will be somewhat more secure than Wikipedia/YouTube, but it still will be in the open sharing and development spirit. I’m constantly amazed at the immense (over a billion) number of modules in Wikipedia that just grew and grew. My experience is that most of the modules are excellent except for some politically sensitive topics and highly specialized topics in technical disciplines.

This is why Camtasia is so important. More and more we will see YouTube-like videos that can be used tot take over more and more where the classroom leaves off. See some of the Acct 5341 and Acct5342 illustrations at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/ (I’m not quite sure why I downloaded the Astaire-Powel and BravoAmerica videos in  this folder a long, long time ago --- Dah!)

In the future, instructors can focus more on motivation to learn and underlying theory while leaving the technical explanations to the knowledge bases where technical explanations and illustrations can be played over and over again and again until they are understood by users. This of course is very frightening to many instructors who are practiced at explaining technical modules and lousy at explaining underlying theory.

The searching will be partly like XBRL if the knowledge base items have XML tags and eventually, as Jagdish points out, Semantic Web searching --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/XBRLandOLAP.htm

It never ceases to amaze me how much knowledge is already available in Wikipedia and YouTube. These are open sharing knowledge bases to be used with caution and suspicion. But they are unbelievably vast in terms of history and, in the case of Wikipedia, full of reference links and highly informative user discussions. Knowledge has become so vast that it boggles our minds. Rather than be scholars filled with facts and figures, we will become scholars who can tap into facts, figures, and knowledge-base explanations that we’re educated enough to comprehend on an as-needed basis.

I can’t remember how to do half the things I put into Camtasia videos (especially in my MS Access videos), but I play them back once or twice and it all makes sense again. What an aid to me these videos are whenever I have to teach something in Access, Excel, XBRL, intangible assets valuation, etc. If only others in the academy would see fit to freely share their Camtasia videos. Sigh!

Anybody interested in developing Camtasia videos might look at my PowerPoint file on Camtasia at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/EdTech/PowerPoint/

Bob Jensen

Updates on Sloodle and Second Life (virtual world learning) --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#SecondLife
The above link includes accounting education applications of Second Life.

The history of course management systems --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm

Blackboard Announces General Availability of the Blackboard Content System, March 9, 2004  --- http://www.blackboard.com/about/press/prview.htm?id=269 

Blackboard Inc., a leading enterprise software company for e-Education, today announced the general availability of the Blackboard Content System™. Currently being implemented by 19 academic institutions, the Blackboard Content System benefits students, faculty and campus IT administrators by lowering the costs and increasing the simplicity of managing learning content, digital assets and e-Portfolios in an enterprise learning environment. The announcement was made in a keynote presentation to an audience of approximately 1,300 attendees at the 2004 Blackboard Users Conference in Phoenix, AZ.

The Blackboard Content System is one system in the Blackboard Academic Suite™, a comprehensive family of integrated applications that provides a unified enterprise environment for teaching, learning, research, knowledge-sharing, communication, and student life. With Blackboard’s common platform, students, instructors and other community members quickly acclimate to a look and feel that makes the online environment as familiar as the offline campus.

The three best-of-breed solutions that make up the Blackboard Academic Suite, the Blackboard Learning System™, Blackboard Content System and Blackboard Portal System™, are made more powerful together through a shared architecture, consistent interfaces, seamless file sharing, and robust administration features. Scalable from a single department to an entire university system, the Blackboard Academic Suite provides an integrated educational experience for students, faculty and staff, and an integrated management view for IT departments.

“Blackboard has rapidly become an integral part of education at Princeton, and enhanced nearly every aspect of that education, both by facilitating existing practices, but also by making possible entirely new practices that will help maintain and enhance Princeton's leadership in higher education,” stated Serge Goldstein, Director of Academic Services, Princeton University. “The Blackboard Content System will enable our faculty to more effectively manage and reuse course content.”

The Blackboard Content System incorporates application capabilities in four key areas: 

• Learning Content Management – easily and effectively share and reuse large volumes of individual content assets across courses, organizations and institutions in a cost-effective manner. 
  
  
• e-Portfolio Management – assemble, present and share information within online portfolios for student and/or faculty to use in academic growth documentation, career evaluation and course preparation. 
  
  
• Virtual Hard Drive Management – cost-effectively accommodate the virtual storage needs of today’s digital education environment. 
  
  
• Library Digital Asset Management – create an interactive environment for faculty to search, access and incorporate digital library resources for use in course preparation. Nineteen clients have already decided to license the new Blackboard Content System, including such innovative educational institutions as Princeton University, Seton Hall University, United States Military Academy at West Point, Hacienda La Puente Unified School District and Nanyang Technical University (Singapore).

“The Blackboard Content System provides students and faculty with better ways to track and navigate learning resources and to showcase the work products and milestones of their educational careers through e-Portfolios,” said Matthew Pittinsky, Chairman of Blackboard. “Already we have seen a great response from our early adopters, and we are pleased to be showcasing the Blackboard Content System this week at our 6th Annual Users Conference.”

From Syllabus News on March 14, 2003

LEARNING SYSTEMS -- Syracuse University has adopted Blackboard Learning System for campuswide use in supporting face-to-face classes. This spring, in the final phase of a pilot program before going to the enterprise, Syracuse has 100 faculty teaching 153 courses to more than 3,000 students using Blackboard. The school said it is making the move because of Blackboard’s ability to scale from 3,000 to 18,000 users, as well as its support of open standards and its ability to integrate with its PeopleSoft student information system.

From Syllabus News on April 30, 2002

Blackboard Targets WebCT Users in Switch Offer

Course management developer Blackboard Inc. said it would offer universities a program to enable schools using the WebCT platform to switch their existing courses to the Blackboard Learning System. In addition to WebCT, Blackboard said its EasySwitch program targets schools which use multiple course management systems and want to standardize on Blackboard. The company said its program uses proprietary technology developed to handle the conversion of existing courses to the open Blackboard format, which is based on IMS standards. Consultantgs will work closely with the school to ensure its data is accurately transferred, properly formatted, and delivered correctly in the Blackboard Learning System.

Bob Jensen's threads on Blackboard are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/blackboard.htm 

Blackboard:  Some things really are bigger (and better)  in Texas

"Cultivating Enlightened Enthusiasm," by Mark Decker, Morrie Schulman, and Joe Sanchez, Syllabus, December 2000, pp. 16-22.

When the University of Texas at Austin selected the enterprise version of Blackboard to help implement its University portal --- UT Direct --- and to create course sites for all 11,000 courses taught at the university, only twenty-five faculty members were invited to pilot-test the courseware.  As other faculty and staff became aware that course sites were available, however, they asked to be included in the process.  this open access to Blackboard course shells, each populated with registered students, created both opportunities and problems.

The University of Texas actually implemented and supports two systems --- Blackboard and WebCT, although Blackboard will be more prevalent. 

"Customized Portal Provides Tailor-Made Information and Services." by Ginger Dillard http://www.utexas.edu/computer/news/features/0010/customization.html 

Students, faculty and staff at UT amount to a combined population of over 60,000 making it seem "virtually" impossible to please them all with one Web site. Yet, in a world of mass production, technology has made it possible to embrace personalization. Customization is key; and UT Direct makes the grade.

UT Direct is an interactive Web site that provides students, faculty and staff with access to University services anytime, anywhere. As part of the e-University initiative, the earliest services incorporated into UT Direct are primarily geared towards students. However, services for faculty and staff are already available and more are in the works.

"The beauty of UT Direct is that users can customize it. Almost everything can be changed to meet individual needs," Dana Cook, the UT Direct project manager, said. "With over 40 services available, it's important that users be able to rearrange their home page to fit their lives."

Channel to the Internet

Blackboard has a new service to "channel into the Internet."  From EduNet, T.H.E. Journal, October 2000, p. 44 --- http://www.thejournal.com/magazine/vault/A3101.cfm 

Blackboard Inc. announces the launch of Blackboard.com, an e-Learning Web site with three channels that provide customizable, subject-specific academic resources; global, interactive communities for students and instructors; and Blackboard’s online course creation capability. The site is accessible to anyone who possesses a Web browser, and the page is also integrated seamlessly into Blackboard 5, the company’s software platform.

Accessible channels on the site include Blackboard CourseSites, Blackboard Resources and Blackboard Communities. The Course- Sites, a large tool for creating and taking online courses, also provides online supplements to classroom instruction. Instructors can create courses for free, or they can pay a modest registration fee that provides enhanced services, including the ability to charge an enrollment fee for their courses. The Blackboard Resources incorporates Blackboard’s Web-based academic resource center, and provides teachers and learners with news, full-text journal articles and annotated links organized into 239 disciplines. The Blackboard Communities allow students and instructors to join in online discussions relevant to their academic or professional interests. Students can interact with peers studying the same subjects at institutions worldwide, and instructors can communicate with scholars in their fields across the globe. Blackboard, Inc., Washington, D.C., (202) 463-4860, www.blackboard.com 

Positive Threads

Scenarios from Bob Jensen

Scenario 1 --- Professor Private
Why Trinity University Faculty May Prefer Blackboard to Our Traditional HTML Server

In this first scenario, suppose Professor Private wants to share material with students in a class but not with persons outside the class.  For example, the publisher of her textbook provides her with course aids and problem solutions that she can share with her students as long as she does not make the material available to the world in general.  She also prefers not to let anybody but her students read her lecture notes.  On Trinity's  TUCC HTML server, about the only security that is possible is to limit awareness of the course URL.  But this is an extremely weak form of security since most anyone can find the material.  In some cases, the material can be stumbled upon by outsiders simply by using a web search engine.  It is not possible to have secure passwords on our HTML server.  Instructors can put Javascript or VBscript passwords on documents, but these passwords cannot keep ten year old kids from easily breaking into those documents.  The Blackboard server allows for very secure password protection.  Nothing is perfectly secure.  For example, students might disclose passwords to unauthorized outsiders.  But Blackboard password risks are much lower than the risks on the HTML server.

I am reminded by John Howland that Trinity University instructors can request space on HTML servers in the Computer Science Department to achieve password protection of HTML files.

Scenario 2 --- Professor Quizalot
Why Trinity University Faculty May Prefer Blackboard to Our Traditional HTML Server

Professor Quizalot never will give any major examinations other than proctored examinations in a classroom.  However, he would like to administer weekly quizzes that do not chew up class time or take his time in grading.  Such quizzes are often administered as an incentive for students to complete assigned readings before class.  In one of my courses I have a textbook that provides online chapter quizzes that are administered and graded each week at the publisher's website.  I require that students take a quiz each week, although the quizzes comprise a very small percentage of the final grade.

What I do to prevent cheating is to assign a partner to every student, and I change the partnerships every week.  Each student is proctored by his or her partner on a remote-site computer.  Partners then sign a form that no unauthorized materials were used during the quiz and that the quiz was not taken by the designated student.  The attest form that each partner signs can be viewed at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5342/attest.htm 

Suppose that Professor Quizalot at Trinity University would like to put his own quizzes online on the HTML server.  It is not possible presently to have the student answers automatically graded on the server and recorded in a grade book maintained on the server.  The only alternative at present would be to have the students email their answers and then grade them by hand.  The Blackboard server allows instructors to both administer and automatically grade online quizzes.

Blackboard Tips on Exam/Quiz Security

A useful feature in Blackboard is that it allows quizzes that randomly select question blocks from question pools. As long as the question pools are larger than the quiz, each student gets a different quiz. Multiple pools can be accessed for each quiz so that topical coverage and difficulty is consistent across students. I use blackboard for weekly quizzes to motivate students to stay current, but the midterm and the final are administered in class.

I also find essay questions on blackboard to be useful for days that a case discussion is scheduled. I can review students' answers before class to see how they are thinking about a case. I have blackboard randomly select from a question pool of pre-assigned questions so students don't know which specific questions they are going to see but they can prepare answers to a larger set of question before starting the quiz. I have received very positive feedback from students that it helps them to be better prepared for class discussion. It is also less work and easier to adminster than ontinuously collecting, grading, and returning case write-ups.

****************************************
 Leslie Kren
Associate Professor
School of Business University of WI - Milwaukee Milwaukee, WI 53201 office: 414 229-6075 fax: 414 229-6957
 lkren@uwm.edu    http://www.uwm.edu/~lkren/ 
****************************************

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Stone
To: AECM@LISTSERV.LOYOLA.EDU
Sent: 3/13/01 8:27 AM Subject:
Re: AECM Digest - 11 Mar 2001 to 12 Mar 2001 (#2001-65)

Hi all,
Re: the blackboard question. I do all quizzes and exams (including the final) in class using blackboard and laptops. Students love this because they get immediate feedback on the objective portions of the exam -- we go over the exam as soon as everyone completes it. I love it because the grading is automatic.

Security is no more or less of an issue than for in-class paper exams. The major risk is the network / system. If it goes down then you've lost the class session (unless you generate paper copies of the exam -- which I do for major exams). To date, I've been lucky and had no major network problems.

****************************************
Dan Stone,
Gatton Endowed Chair of Accounting,
Univ. of Kentucky,
Von Allmen School of Accountancy, 355 Business & Economics, Lexington, KY 40506-0034 * internet: dstone@pop.uky.edu   www: http://gatton.uky.edu/GattonPeople/People/DepartList/AccDeptList/AccFac/ accf ac_14.html  phone: 859-257-3788, fax: 859-257-3654, office: 425G Business & Economics office: 425G Business & Economics
****************************************

Scenario 3 --- Professor Rome Roams
Why Trinity University Faculty May Prefer Blackboard to Our Traditional HTML Server

Professor Rome roamed to a conference in Rome during a very crucial week in the semester when students are engaging in team projects.  She would like to participate in each team's deliberations while in Rome.  With the Blackboard server, she can have each team meet in an online Blackboard chat room rather than in a face-to-face meeting.  In doing so, she and the students may discover that the online chats are more effective and efficient than having to schedule face-to-face meetings between team members and the instructor.

Scenario 4 --- Professor Mentor
Why Trinity University Faculty May Prefer Blackboard to Our Traditional HTML Server

Professor Mentor assembled a team of six leading experts who agreed to meet in Blackboard chat rooms once a week with teams of students.  Professor Mentor wants students to interact with leading experts on some rather advanced topics of her particular course.

One feature of Blackboard that is greatly appreciated is the ease by which Blackboard enables her to thread discussions together throughout the course.

Scenario 5 --- Professor Sharon Lightener
Why Trinity University Faculty May Prefer Blackboard to Our Traditional HTML Server

Professor Sharon Lightner from San Diego State University coordinates an innovative international accounting course that initially had five students and a professor from each of six universities in five nations who met simultaneously for an entire semester via a multimedia online classroom in which all participants could see, hear, and communicate in "classes" that were in reality chat rooms.  Although Dr. Lightner did not use Blackboard, it is possible to use Blackboard for such purposes.

In addition to students and faculty, a leading accounting practitioner from each nation met with students in these "virtual" classrooms.  Also, a representative from an accounting standard setting body met with students in these online chat rooms.

Dr. Lightner's innovative course has been very successful.  Although the number of universities has been reduced to four (in Switzerland, Spain, Hong Kong, and the U.S.), the course itself is constantly improving.  You can read more about this course at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/255light.htm.

Scenario 6 --- Professor Knowbeans
Why Trinity University Faculty May Prefer Blackboard to Our Traditional HTML Server

Professor Knowbeans does not know beans about authoring for the web and does not care to spend more than one hour learning about web authoring.  One hour is really not nearly enough time for learning how to put course materials up on Trinity's HTML server.  One hour just may be plenty of time for Knowbeans to learn how to put up course materials on the Blackboard server.

Scenario 7 --- Professor Suspicious
Why Trinity University Faculty May Prefer Blackboard to Our Traditional HTML Server

Although the HTML server has been very reliable at Trinity University. Professor Suspicious just does not trust a single system to always be reliable.  Even though a Blackboard server is housed on the Trinity University campus, it is also possible to serve up courses from Blackboard's external servers.  If the Trinity system failed for whatever reason, course materials could be quickly transferred to the external servers.

Scenario 8 --- Professor Research
Why Trinity University Faculty May Prefer Blackboard to Our Traditional HTML Server

Professor Research at Trinity University wants to conduct an international survey.  It is both technically difficult to configure and against TUCC policy to configure the HTML server to allow her respondents to fill out an online form and submit it to the server for automatic tabulation of the responses on the server.  If she puts the survey up on Blackboard, however, it becomes quite easy to put the form online and have the responses tabulated on the Blackboard server.  She can even create chat rooms where small groups of respondents collaborate in submitting a "group" response.

Blackboard FAQs
Although many universities are serving up Blackboard from on-campus servers, Blackboard Inc. also provides an  external-server system called Blackboard.com.  The following FAQs appear at http://company.blackboard.com/Bb/faqs.html 

http://company.blackboard.com/Bb/faqs.html#1 
What is Blackboard Inc.?
Blackboard Inc. is the leading education platform on the Internet. It provides one of the world's most popular and effective platforms for teaching and learning over the Internet and powers the online learning environments at some of the nation's most prestigious colleges and universities. Only Blackboard has a three-tiered roadmap - we call it Universal Learning Solutions (ULS). ULS enables educators and institutions to enter online teaching at a level that most closely matches their needs: single course Web sites free with Blackboard.com, multiple course Web sites with Blackboard CourseInfo, and entire online campuses with Blackboard Campus.

http://company.blackboard.com/Bb/faqs.html#2 
 What is Blackboard.com?
Blackboard.com is a FREE service that enables instructors to add an online component to their classes, or even host an entire course on the Web. Without knowing any HTML, you can quickly create your own CourseSite^TM - a Web site that brings your learning materials, class discussions, and even tests online.

 http://company.blackboard.com/Bb/faqs.html#3   
As an instructor, how can Blackboard.com help me?
Blackboard.com is an instructor's answer to harnessing the power of the World Wide Web. Our web site is so intuitive, it guides you through five simple steps for creating a virtual class - with no programming languages or HTML to learn. If you can surf the Internet, you can create a course on Blackboard.com. It is that simple. And it only takes about five minutes.  Blackboard.com incorporates numerous features to enrich the online learning experience:

• Asynchronous Communication (threaded discussions)
• Synchronous Communication (real-time chat and whiteboard)
• Assessment Tools and Gradebook
• Collaborative Work Groups
• Content Creation (e.g. syllabus and course description pages)
• Database Reporting and CourseSite Statistics
• Messaging System
• Online File Exchange (between instructor and student)
• Online Tutorial
• User Tracking

Our free service enables instructors to incorporate a powerful supplement to coursework, improve student performance, create an innovative forum to discuss lessons, and customize a teaching plan to each student’s unique learning style.

http://company.blackboard.com/Bb/faqs.html#8 
If courses are free, how does Blackboard.com make money?
Blackboard.com is part of Blackboard Inc., an educational software development company. Blackboard Inc.'s primary product is CourseInfo^sm a software solution that allows organizations and institutions to implement CourseSite technology for the entire organization. There is an annual fee for CourseInfo per license and this is how the Blackboard Inc. business is funded.

http://company.blackboard.com/Bb/faqs.html#9 
What is the difference between the Blackboard.com and CourseInfo?
Blackboard.com is a free, Web-based service offered not only to educational institutions and businesses but also to the general public. CourseInfo is a software solution that allows organizations and institutions to implement CourseSite technology for the entire organization

Blackboard Testimonial Videos from Northwestern University Faculty (Free Downloads) --- http://www.at.northwestern.edu/blackboard/ 
Most Windows users will want to choose the Windows Media versions.

Trinity University faculty may access these video files on my Drive J on the LAN network path 
J:\blackboard\northwestern 
These videos play on my Windows Media Player.  On my rather dated and slow computer, the audio works great, but the video gets somewhat out of synchronization with the audio.  Nevertheless, I liked these free video testimonials about using the Blackboard system.  You can read more about Blackboard at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/blackboard.htm 

These are brief testimonials from Blackboard-using faculty from Northwestern University:  Dwight Conquergood (Professor of Performance Studies), Kathy Spier (Management and Strategies Professor in the Kellogg Graduate School of Business), and Jillana Enteen. (Assistant Professor in the Departments of English and Comparative Literature Studies).  Professor Conquergood was a first-time user of this type of technology, whereas Professor Enteen was a former user of WebCT.  She claims Blackboard is easier to use and more reliable.  (In fairness, WebCT and other competitors have upgraded versions that may make her claims somewhat dated.)   Professor Spier has used Blackboard for two years.

Kathy Spier comments on the advantages for communicating with students in large classes.  Professor Conquergood uses Blackboard in a small class of 14 students in a graduate course.  His students like the discussion boards, which he calls cyber roundtables.  Professor Enteen comments on her use of Blackboard's personalized gradebook.  She also likes the discussion board feature.

Blackboard Training Videos

• Blackboard's Corporate Video --- http://company.blackboard.com/video/index.cgi 
  
  

• San Diego State University will soon have a Blackboard Version 5.5 available at http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/dept/its/blackboard/student/gettingstarted/video.html 
  
  

• Saginaw Valley State University

Training Tutorials

• Duke University --- http://courses.duke.edu/common/manual/index.html 
  Also note the page at http://courseinfo.duke.edu/training.html 
  
  

• San Diego State University --- http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/dept/its/blackboard/instructor/gettingstarted/coursesite.html  
  
  

• Wiley Higher Education -  http://jws-edcv.wiley.com/college/blackboard/faq/1,1163,,00.html 
  
  

• You can create a free course and read testimonials at http://www.blackboard.net/ 

I have a favor to request from you:

If you find some good training sites, CDs, videos, or whatever else related to BlackBoard or WebCT, please let me know at rjensen@trinity.edu 
Thanks!

Bob Jensen's History and Future of Course Authoring Technologies ---  http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm 

Bob Jensen's message sent out on TigerTalk, April 18, 2000

The Blackboard server is now running at Trinity University. This summer, faculty may want to take some time to put course materials up on the Blackboard server. My great hope for this server is that faculty need no technical skills to put interactive materials online, conduct tests and research surveys that are automatically tabulated, and manage entire courses. In addition there are chat rooms.

After I have some time to play with Blackboard, I will try to pass along some ideas for courses. In the meantime, here are some ideas that other faculty have found useful at over 1,500 colleges who also adopted the Blackboard, WebCT, and similar servers. You can read more about such web authoring servers at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245soft1.htm 

In the above document I provide many links and facts about the Blackboard. server.

Here are some ideas to think about in designing your courses for the Blackboard:

* Focus on major concepts --- hypertext study aids to guide students through complex concepts.

* Online quizzes with feedback --- automatically graded by the system with results reported back to the instructor.

* Password restricted entry to selected materials (e.g., answers).

* Flashcards with multimedia --- for those topics that need drill for faculty who still believe in drill for some topics and some students. For example, language drills or financial statement analysis drills can be very helpful to students.

* Links to timely, up-to-date resources to supplement your classes.

* Discussion questions --- preloaded by course module to stimulate classroom discussion.

* An interactive calendar to identify important dates such as exams, assignment due dates and more.

* Online communication tools (email, chat and threaded discussion) for student-to-student and instructor-to-student interaction.

* Management tools that allow you to track and monitor your student's progress, grade quizzes, and generate class reports.

You may want to see my advice to new faculty at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/newfaculty.htm 
Bob Jensen

Messages Sent Prior to Year 2000

Dave Feeney gave me permission to share the following message with other educators regarding Blackboard-based Faculty Development:

Dear Dr. Jensen,

My name is Dave Feeney. You may not remember me, but we met over lunch in Philadelphia with Dr. Eric Press. Since then, I have begun to work full time for the School of Business and Management here at Temple University.

I wanted to say "hello", and tell you that I feature your site in my Blackboard-based Faculty Development Course for FOX School Faculty:

http://courseinfo.temple.edu/courses/dfeeney_facdev/   

You may visit my course as a Guest by clicking on the link above, then typing GUEST as your Username and Password.

Your Trinity site is a clickable link in External Links, inside the Faculty Websites folder.

"Guesting" will also enable you to see 6 of the 8 Course areas. Feel free to look around and explore how we are using Blackboard for faculty training.

I hope you're doing well. My new FOX SBM office is now next to the accounting department in Speakman Hall 300. Drs. Eric Press and Steve Fogg in Accounting send their best.

My best,

Dave Feeney Director, Digital Education FOX School of Business & Management 215-204-2727 DistanceEd@aol.com http://oll.temple.edu/davefeeney 

Tony Tinker wrote the following with respect to Blackboard

Regarding you interest in "innovative" cost accounting courses, while not quite in line with this, my students are heavy users of Blackboard software in their Accounting Information Systems course. They complete a substantial writing / essay component (not the "short essay" variety) that is undertaken individually, as well as collaboratively in project groups. While they cover the necessary technical computing and accounting stuff, there is great emphasis on understanding the history of technology (including its social history) and relating that to understanding changes in the profession, and the accounting workplace today.

I would suggest that the innovative potential of communications technology lies, not in doing "more accounting", but in developing communication skills in the manner indicated above.

Go to: http://lavinia.cis.cuny.edu:8001/ 

Click on the third course down on the list: [Acc3202xx25, Accounting Information Systems, Tony Tinker]

When prompted, Enter: Student Id: FA0367, Password: 19780719

This gives you access to the course, as a member of student group 1 (you have access to this group's work area; it is one of 8 groups in the course).

Two routes that may be of interest from the main menu:

 

1. EXTERNAL LINKS (follow the links and this takes you to the syllabus). 2. COMMUNICATIONS > Group Pages > Group 1 (scroll to the bottom) > Discussion Board (here you will find group discussion leading up to the first electronic essay assignment -- described in the ANNOUNCEMENTS section of the course.

Please contact me if you have any problems.

Fraternally

Tony Tinker 
Professor & Co-Editor Critical Perspectives on Accounting The Accounting Forum 
Baruch College: Box E-723 City 
University of New York 17 Lexington Avenue New York, NY 10010 USA Tel: 212 802 6436 Fax: 212 802 6423 Email: TonyTinker@msn.com Email Tony_Tinker@baruch.cuny.edu 
Standing Critical Conference Website: http://bus.baruch.cuny.edu/critical/ 
Accounting Information Systems Course Site: http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/upload/ttinker/3202HOME.htm

Message from  from Roger Debreceny on January 31, 2000 (Positive Comment)

After a pretty unsatisfactory period using TopClass, my institution is switching to using BlackBoard. In the interim period before BlackBoard is loaded on our servers, I have been using the free services from http://www.blackboard.com  I am impressed with the design of the shell and the ease with which it can be taught to technophobic colleagues. Students have also taken quickly to the interface.

Are there any other AECM members using BlackBoard in an institutional environment, as distinct from the free online service? If so, please email me directly.

Thank you,

Roger Debreceny, PhD, FCPA, 
CMA Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University, 
Room S3-B1-B61 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798 
rogerd@netbox.com adebreceny@ntu.edu .sg http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/adebreceny  
ICQ 22958324 Ph: +65 790 6049 Fax: +65 791 3697

Message from Phil Knutel on April 18, 2000 (Positive Comment)

We launched a Blackboard Courseinfo server here at Bentley the second week of January, and the response from faculty has been overwhelming. Some three months later, we have about 150 course websites up on it (though probably only 100 are really using a lot of the functionality). Overall, most faculty have found it very easy to use and have been pretty impressed by the variety of features. When I go to conferences and talk with my colleagues, many of whom have implemented Blackboard, WebCT, or other similar apps, there is almost universal praise for Blackboard's Courseinfo and very mixed reviews for the other products. We researched about a dozen competing products (many of these comparisons are linked from Blackboard's website), and it has been the hands-down winner in most of these evaluations.

I can see why Germain might want to stick with using Frontpage if that is what he is used to, and I could see those who have done their own webpages using HTML editors feeling constrained by the Courseinfo structure. However, the features that can be used to enrich a course found in Courseinfo would be nearly impossible for an individual, using HTML or an HTML editor like Frontpage, to create and maintain. Plus, FTPing files to a web server, getting the necessary (and secure) access to do this, explaining this process to novice technology users, etc. can present real challenges at many institutions. IF you are comfortable with viewing a Blackboard Courseinfo site simply as a course resource/tool and not as a place to creatively express yourself/your course on the web, then Courseinfo's easy to use interface and loads of features (that someone else maintains!) make it the ideal choice. It's not perfect, but the company really seems to understand the needs of faculty and are fixing current features and implementing new ones all the time.

Feel free to go to http://ecourses.bentley.edu  to see the front end we designed for our Blackboard server.

Phillip Knutel, Ph.D. Director of Academic Technology Bentley College Waltham, MA
[pknutel@LNMTA.BENTLEY.EDU] 

Message from Bill Spinks on April 20, 2000 (Positive Comment)

Just to reinforce what Bob has said. I had some experience with Blackboard at the ACS workshop last summer, and it is definitely useful if you are interested in doing some parts of your classes with an electronic emphasis. There are on-line samples (one free to you) at www.blackboard.com  (at least I think that is the url) for you to play with if you wish.

Some things I remember that are provided Bulletin Boards, Chat Rooms, on-line resources and notes, places to post materials (syllabi, assignments, exercises, collaborative works, peer reviews, and study quizzes, etc), posting of grades with students having access to only what you will establish, etc. Most of this is front end screens which you fill in and Blackboard does all the codlings for you....

Bill Spinks (Professor of English at Trinity University)

Message from Ken Merwin on April 20, 2000 (Positive Comment)

Asking students to submit comments for your resource is an excellent idea! Sometimes it seems that student input is lacking and it's refreshing to see you soliciting their input. I see many postings on educational list servs that never mention "student".

I have several students in my 2nd year (technical college) course that I teach over ITV between 2 satellite campuses that have really taken off on the use of Blackboard. If I had these same students for another course I know I would be able to tap some of the features such as "chat"; more threaded discussion, etc. Given that these students had no previous experience with even the use of a list serv I am darned proud of them.

I have emphasized to them that this is the type of "environment" they are likely to see for on-going professional education, etc. and a few of them may opt for moving towards their 4 (or 5) year degree where they are likely to see far more use of Internet technologies in those programs.

There has been a discussion regarding Blackboard (plus several other similar packages) over on the DEOS list serv; they maintain an archive and directions for accessing their list serv at the following:

"For browser access to DEOS-L Archives and User subscription options, go to http://lists.psu.edu/archives/deos-l.html 

DEOS-L is a service provided to the Distance Education community by The American Center for the Study of Distance Education, The Pennsylvania State University. Opinions expressed are those of DEOS-L subscribers, and do not constitute endorsement of any opinion, product, or service by ACSDE or Penn State."

Since the website you mentioned in your post, Bob, is public (versus the obvious private Blackboard sites) I am going to forward it to a small internal list serv on "Blackboard" within the Madison Area Technical College here in Wisconsin.

Best, 
Ken Merwin Technical Colleges Accounting Instructor Wisconsin
Ken Merwin [kmgraduw@CENTURYINTER.NET] 

Message from Ray Casaldi on April 20, 2000 (Positive Comment)

We began using Course Info (Blackboard) last year. At that time about 30 faculty used it to enhance their course work. Today over 300 faculty use it in many ways. Now our course catalog each semester uses a letter code for those courses that used Course Info to designate whether it is "assisted", "enhanced", or "based" on the Online Course system. "Assisted" means there is some use of the Web and the Online system for some of the materials and instruction, whereas "based" indicates that practically the entire course is offered over the Web.

Faculty reaction here at Towson, has been very favorable, as indicated by the rapid growth in use. There are however a couple of difficult parts of it, principally in the Quiz/Test assessment area...It is rather difficult to use, and this is especially cumbersome if the instructor has questions and problems already prepared that need to be "copied" to the Online course system.

With the frequent updates to the Online system, I hope they fix this and other sections to make it even easier to use.

Ray Castaldi
Castaldi, Ray [rcastaldi@TOWSON.EDU] 

I have to let my favorite tax professor, Amy Dunbar, have her say even if its not on a "Blackboard."  April 20, 2000:

I have been reading a lot about Blackboard, and I thought I would put in my 2 cents worth for WebCT. I am not familiar with Blackboard, other than hearing that it is easier to use than WebCT but not as comprehensive. WebCT is generally installed on a university server rather than the school of business server. Like Blackboard, it has a good listserv. The licensing fee is $3,000 per year for unlimited student usage. http://about.webct.com/buy/price_lic.html#pro 

I am on a technology in education panel at the Northeast Regional Meeting this week. I prepared an overview doc of WebCT, including a section that discusses my use of WebCT. http://www.sba.uconn.edu/users/adunbar/webct/usingwebct.htm  This web page is a work in progress, but the overview doc is the first link.

Despite all the critics who find it clunky, I love it. I can use html, but I much prefer having WebCT do it for me. I recently discovered the power of the WebCT calendar. I intend to use it to provide links to my notes, assignments, etc. It's wonderful! And yes, my students are having fun with WebCT, too. The student use of the bulletin board and chat room has been great. I put my weekly homework out as a "quiz." The students use the board and chat rooms to work the homework together (I want my students to work together - the exams can tell me if they learned anything). On Thursdays, they take the quiz on WebCT, and the grading is automatically done. I love it! If you like computation problems, use the short answer questions, which allow students to type in the answer. You can also use essay questions, but you have to grade them on the web. I save essays for my exams, which I still do with paper and pencil in a classroom.

This summer, one of our tax classes will be taught in Stamford and in Hartford. I will share a WebCT site with the Stamford professor, so that our students will get to learn using the same tools. The shared access feature of WebCT makes it possible for both instructors to use the site. In addition, all students can access the same homework, notes, projects, and self-tests.

My next step will be to use it for a distance learning class, but that's in the future.

Amy Dunbar [ADunbar@SBA.UCONN.EDU] 

Message from Lim Poh Gek on April 28, 2000 (Positive Comment)

Dear Prof Bob Jensen,

I am Julie from the same Nanyang Technological University as Prof Roger Debreceny. May I make use of your write-up on Blackboard Advice and Message Threads to be put in my department website for our academic staff to read?

At the same time, I like to say that I agree with Prof Roger that the weakest area for Blackboard is the Assessment area. There is a need to scroll down to read the whole question if the question exceeds 255 characters including white space (which is too limited). It cannot be timed to be released at the specific time and date of the assessment. You can only make it unavailable, and when you want to release the assessment, you make it available.

However, Prof Roger does not know it is only the free version of Blackboard CouseInfo which he is using that cannot randomize the questions. The actual version that we are getting from Blackboard Inc. has the Pool Manager which can do randomizing of questions in the assessment. However, I have yet to try out this randomizing of the items in the item bank of assessment questions as the software platform is not here yet.

On the positive note, having this free version of Blackboard CourseInfo for us to try out is a very quick way to get ourselves familiarise with it first. Also, the featured coursesites offer us free sample courses to emulate and tap ideas and to spurn new ideas on developing our online courses.

I will like to know anyone who has made use of other assessment tools implemented in the Blackboard environment, and who can share the experience with us. Has anyone tried making use of Macromedia CourseBuilder (which needs Dreamweaver Version 3) to run the assessment part of his/her online course using Blackboard?

Thank you!

With Best regards! 
Lim Poh Gek, Julie Centre for Educational Development (CED) email : pglim@ntu.edu.sg Nanyang  Technological University, Singapore
Lim Poh Gek [PGLim@ntu.edu.sg] 

Message from Lim Poh Gek on May 3, 2000 (Positive Comment)

Dear Prof Jensen,

Yes, you can make use of my comments. However, only yesterday the regional manager of Blackboard Inc., Mr Simmons, came to NTU and he told us that the latest version of Blackboard platform will have this feature of setting the dates and times of release for several assessment quizzes. Also, they are incorporating question-mark software into Blackboard at no extra charge. Also, they are going to incorporate into Blackboard the ability to type in special characters, mathematical symbols, and equations even in the Discussion threads.

Thank you for your approval to make use of your write-up.

With Best regards! 
Lim Poh Gek, 
Julie Centre for Educational Development (CED) email : pglim@ntu.edu.sg 

Note from Bob Jensen:  Question Mark Software's homepage is at http://www.questionmark.com/

Computerizing Testing, Surveys and Assessments with Question Mark! Question Mark is a powerful tool for computerizing quizzes, tests, assessments and surveys. It is easy to use by both the question designer and the candidate or participant. Question Mark saves time and money while allowing you to present questions with videos, graphics and a wide variety of styles.

How does it work?

Question Mark software allows you to create question files while the participant uses a run-time system or a Web browser to answer your questions. The participant receives the feedback that you have specified. Answers are then saved to a file for scoring and analysis.

Why two sets of hyper-links?

Question Mark operates worldwide and provides two web servers to provide easy access, one located in North America and one located in Europe. These servers contain unique and specific information for the territories they serve.

An email message from Patricia Doherty on November 9, 2000

We have "Blackboard" at BU. I do not every print any handouts, not even the syllabus.. Most students are familiar with the system. For those who might not be (occasional transfer student) I put the web address on the board. The students, by this point, are also expected to have email accounts. So, I email everyone before the semester begins to tell them where to look for the syllabus. From then on, I transmit everything except exams online. I accept online assignments, and seldom print them, because I keep them short enough that they are not hard to read on the monitor. Then, I can return them via a digital "dropbox" and never have a piece of paper to deal with. Some students still turn in written assignments, and that is fine with me.

I find email and attachments work well for answering questions, so they don't have to necessarily visit the office. They can show me what they were working on, and I can add comments to move them forward. Again, works for my hours and theirs. They can send it at 2AM when they are awake, and I can answer it at 8 AM when I am awake.

Patricia Doherty [pdoherty@BU.EDU] 

Negative Threads

Note from Bob Jensen
Since I am not yet a veteran user of Blackboard, but some limitations do bother me.  

• One limitation is that your Blackboard material cannot be located by the outside world using search engines.  You must use Trinity's HTML server for search engine discovery of your materials.  Although many instructors view the inability of search engines to find Blackboard documents an advantage, instructors who want to share materials with search engine users will find this a drawback.  Blackboard instructors can, however, post password information allowing visitors to enter the system as a "Guest."  However, this does not open up any of the materials to search engine hits from around the world.
  
  
• If you move from Trinity University to another institution, that institution may be on a different system than Blackboard.  For example, that system may have WebCT.  Some things materials are easily transported from one system to another, but certain materials such as quizzes and survey forms might have to be reworked.  However, if you were careful to avoid absolute links to a particular HTML server, your materials can be easily transported from one HTML server to another HTML server.  

Message from Germain Boer on April 18, 2000 (Negative Comment)

We have been using Blackboard here at the Owen School (at Vanderbilt) for about two years. I am not a user of it, because you have to crawl inside Blackboard and stay there to use its features. I was able to paste links to all my web pages into Blackboard, but I basically stopped using it because I did not want to develop material for Blackboard that would disappear if we stopped using it. I prefer to develop materials that will be available to my students on the web regardless of the browser they use.

If I start using Blackboard, I am a slave to it. Anything such as quizzes and exercises I develop in Blackboard (and these features are very nice) are useable only by people who are using Blackboard.

Maybe I am too old to change, but I just keep on using Frontpage to develop my web stuff.

Germain Boer [Germain.Boer@OWEN.VANDERBILT.EDU]

Note from Jensen:  Although students must use Blackboard for interactive quizzing and grade recording, others from around the world who enter the system as invited "Guests" can view documents.  Guests need not have Blackboard installed on their own computers (actually the only Blackboard software is on the Blackboard server and not on any student's computer).  However, Germain is correct in the sense that the Guests cannot take the quizzes and have their grades tabulated unless they are reclassified to Student status by the instructor.

Also note that course materials can be simultaneously placed on both the Blackboard server and on an HTML server.  It may be best to put public-access HTML documents on the HTML server so that those documents can be found by search engines of the world.  Private documents, interactive quizzes, chat room threads, and survey instruments can be put up on the password-controlled Blackboard system.

Message from Roger Debreceny on April 21, 2000 (Some Limiting and Annoying Features)

As I mentioned in an email some time ago, NTU has adopted BlackBoard CourseInfo Enterprise as the platform of choice. A prime selection criterion for NTU was the ability to integrate BB with our Oracle-based registry system.

In preparation for coordinating a course with some 400 students next semester, I have been using the free version of BlackBoard for an MBA class, along with colleagues. I would like to reinforce a number of points that have been raised in previous emails .. BlackBoard is easy to use for both faculty and students. The differing roles of instructor, grader etc,. has been well thought out. The support for student groups is esp. strong. I have also been making use of upload of zip files. BB unpacks the site and asks you which file is the entry point. This works well for, for example, complete HTML sites and HTML versions of PowerPoint presentations.

The assessment component is clearly the weakest feature -- no question or block randomisation, no feedback on individual incorrect answers in MCQs, no bulk upload (which TopClass handled *very* well) and most irritatingly of all, no HTML in the questions. No HTML in discussion items is also annoying.

I understand that Prentice-Hall has bought a share in BB and that P-H teaching materials will be brought to BB very soon.

Roger Debreceny [rogerd@NETBOX.COM] 

Reply to Roger from Barbara McCartney

Dear Roger

I have spent the last 18 mths teaching large and small classes with WebCT and found it clunky but useful in V1.3 but with upgrades to V2 and V2.1 I have finally concluded that this product is a nightmare and I wonder what goulish excitement is pending in V3. I have been quietly experimenting with Blackboard using a free course and at this stage I prefer Blackboard and your comments have reinforced this view. Nevertheless I wonder what happens when institutions like my own are somewhat financially locked into a 'good' product which then becomes a more of a problem than a solution. Generally and only out of this experience I am wondering if Universities should hold off making major commitments to any one product eg Blackboard etc at this stage rather than give one provider monopoly status. Instead it may be better to concentrate on infrastructure which would support multiple courseware products. I believe this is happening at UWS. 
Regards
Barbara McCartney [bmccartn@METZ.UNE.EDU.AU] 

Reply to Barbara from Roger

Dear Barbara and all ..

Well, I am not sure about multiple platforms. Anything that requires students to have to 
learn new systems is not desirable. One of our ambitions with the Enterprise edition is 
to build a complete student platform that will have an entree to all of their courses, 
registration information etc.
etc. This would be something along the lines of http://my.ucla.edu/ 

If we are talking about monopoly status, I think there is a greater problem with publishers 
trying to lock us not only now into particular textbooks but also the associated Web sites. 
My guess is that it is going to be very difficult for faculty to simultaneously change textbooks 
*and* Web sites.
Roger Debreceny [rogerd@NETBOX.COM]

Blackboard and Datatel Partnering

WASHINGTON, D.C. and FAIRFAX, Va. – August 13, 2001 – Blackboard Inc., the leading
Internet infrastructure company for e- Education, and Datatel, Inc., the premier provider of
advanced information management solutions for higher education, today announced an
agreement to develop an integrated solution that delivers a unified online campus environment
for clients. The solution will enha nce the companies’ ongoing efforts to tie together key front-end
applications from Blackboard – including courses, communities and auxiliary services –
with critical back-office services from Datatel such as human resources, finance, institutional
advancement, and student information.
Michael J. Stanton Tricia, Blackboard Inc.. (202) 463-4860 x305 mstanton@blackboard.com 
Tricia Score, Datatel, Inc.  (703) 227-1010 txs@datatel.com 

An email message from James Greenberg [greenbjb@snyoneva.cc.oneonta.edu] on 9/27/00

Some of the negative aspects of Blackboard are discussed in the following message comparing the SUNY homegrown system with the Blackboard (Bb) system:

Robert, 
Here are a few examples of why I think the SUNY Learning Network (SLN) is better than Blackboard (Bb).

The SLN has a far superior way for a faculty member to move documents around in the course after they are posted. In Bb you must remove the document and re-add it in the new place. This sounds small but it is a big deal for me, especially during the development of a course.

The SLN's method for faculty creating assignments, having students complete them, the faculty member grade them and provide feedback, and finally the student to review their graded or reviewed work is much much better than either Bb or Web CT. This is a critical piece for me and I find when I use Bb I really don't like the way I have to do it compared to the SLN way.

The SLN has a "red pen" that automatically works when evaluating student assignments so students can see you comments within their original work. It all flows within the SLN system. In Bb you have to export the work into Word or similar, review it then put it back in the Student's Drop Box. It is difficult, time consuming and frankly doesn't work well for me or the students. Copy and pasting 120 assignments per week and then dropping them in a drop box is way to much work. In the SLN I can read the response, grade it and send it back to the student all from the same window.

The SLN interface for discussion areas is much clearer for students than the Bb one. This is a hard one to explain, but easy to show.

Grading student work is MUCH faster in the SLN since all work is "replicated" to your local machine and you work faster. Each time you call up a paper or assignment in Bb you wait for the web and sometimes it is sluggish. Imagine grading 120 papers a week!! The SLN is very very fast and makes going through a large number of discussion postings or assignments much faster. That is you spend all your time doing the real work of evaluation and not waiting for the next page to display because of the web.

SLN allows for links to other SLN pages. That is you can link from one place in your course to another. This is not possible in Bb and really limits things you can do to help students navigate through the course documents. If you are familiar with Bb, imagine being able to link from your syllabus to assignment documents.

After years of use and thousands of courses offered all from a central place where the people are truly instructional design experts (who are now also very very experienced), SLN has really matured. They have taken this experience and knowledge and built custom templates for faculty that really help. Bb , in my opinion is not there yet. For example, they have built a very nice automated matrix for grading where students and faculty can see their assignments and the modules of the course in one nice snapshot so they can quickly see what they have to do and what they have done. I know of no such feature in Bb without building your own somehow.

SLN has built a reliable, redundant server environment that supports 50+ campuses. Bb usually is done by an individual campus with smaller (often not adequate) resources. With SLN you rarely have any down time. With Bb you can expect the normal server outages and although your IS people might tell you there will be little or no outages, don't believe them. You will have them.

I could go on.....

Having said all this, one has to wonder about the future of a "home grown" CMS package like SUNY has built vs. Bb or WebCT? Even if SLN is better now, will it be in the future? Certainly Bb (or WebCT) has money and will grow and get better. Are we better served by using Bb and living with it until it matures? Perhaps. I hope this helps and feel free to share my comments with anyone so you can get their perspectives and criticisms of what I have said.

Harold GoeddeSUNY-OneontaDivision of Business and EconomicsOneonta, NY 13820 607-436-2544 -- Mr. James B. Greenberg Director Teaching, Learning and Technology Center Milne Library 
SUNY College at Oneonta Oneonta, New York 13820 email: greenbjb@oneonta.edu  phone: 607-436-2701

From Syllabus News on December 11, 2001

Blackboard, CollegisEduprise Expand Partnership

Blackboard Inc. and CollegisEduprise, Inc. said they would bundle their respective tools and services to strengthen their offerings to the higher education market. The collaboration will blend the Blackboard 5 Learning System, software licensing, application hosting and integration services from Blackboard with education assessment, strategic planning, end-user help desk services, and faculty pedagogical training from CollegisEduprise. Clients of both companies include the Community College of Denver, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Montgomery Community College, New York Institute of Technology, Norfolk State University and the University of Baltimore.

From SyllabusNews on August 6, 2002

Sylvan Learning Standardizes on Blackboard

Sylvan Learning System's online higher education division adopted the Blackboard Learning System as its online operating system. Under the agreement, Sylvan will use a customized version of Blackboard for course authoring, management and delivery. Sylvan, one of the leaders in for-profit consumer education, has broadened its position in the post-secondary e-Learning market to 3,127 enrollments in 2002. Sylvan will now use Blackboard across its online higher ed offerings, which include Walden University for working professionals in education, management, health, and psychology; National Technological University for engineering, management, and computer-related fields; Canter & Associates for education professionals; and OnlineLearning.net, a partnership with UCLA Extension, University of San Diego Continuing Education, and Andrews University.

Nuventive's iWebfolio 

From Syllabus News on February 18, 2003

Blackboard to Integrate Nuventive Electronic Portfolios

Course management company Blackboard Inc. and Nuventive, which provides assessment and portfolio solutions for higher education, agreed to integrate Nuventive’s iWebfolio electronic portfolio software with the Blackboard Learning System. Nuventive's iWebfolio is an electronic portfolio that gives students and faculty and staff the ability to store, organize, and display personal "learning" evidence to faculty, admissions offices, and employers through the creation of any number of portfolio views. Portfolios can contain work samples, learning goals, personal reflections, educational and professional accomplishments, in a variety of formats including text and multimedia. Users will be able to share course-related documents with instructors, study group members, and organization members.

Readers can access the Blackboard home page at http://www.blackboard.com/ 

Readers can read about Blackboard and its competitors at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245soft1.htm