OK, despite having read the article, the thread, and working for a major US university, I still have no clue what this Blackboard thing does, or what LMS stands for (though I have learned that everybody hates Blackboard). Can someone explain what class of product we're discussing?
Instructure Launches To Root Blackboard Out Of Universities
21–30 of 53 posts
Re: Instructure Launches To Root Blackboard Out Of Universities
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
I asked pg at startup school about doing an edtech startup, and his answer was something like "Well, schools move to slowly to ever get traction, but if you ever did get traction, Blackboard would sue the crap out of you immediately." (That said, I'm still planning an edtech startup. Best of luck to instructure!)
Does Blackboard have some patents in the space that they leverage when suing? On what grounds do they sue?
I'm sure they have lots of patens but they also have lots of money. It is hard for a small startup to take on that much money in a legal battle.
Re: Instructure Launches To Root Blackboard Out Of Universities
#23OK, despite having read the article, the thread, and working for a major US university, I still have no clue what this Blackboard thing does, or what LMS stands for (though I have learned that everybody hates Blackboard). Can someone explain what class of product we're discussing?
LMS = Learning Management System
Blackboard hurts Universities because it's overly expensive and unintuitive for the price.
This new site looks great. I worked on http://moodle.org/ back in the day which is a great opensource alternative. It's now deployed in most if not all California State Universities. This is a great space to work in.
Re: Instructure Launches To Root Blackboard Out Of Universities
#24OK, despite having read the article, the thread, and working for a major US university, I still have no clue what this Blackboard thing does, or what LMS stands for (though I have learned that everybody hates Blackboard). Can someone explain what class of product we're discussing?
LMS - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_management_system
Blackboard is an LMS that many major universities use to provide online support for classes. At my university (University of Richmond), I can sign on to blackboard.richmond.edu and for each of my classes that semester, can download assignments/lecture/slides that my teacher has uploaded, upload assignments for my teacher to grade, view a roster of the other kids in my class, participate on a bulletin-board for "class discussions", view my grades, and my teacher can send out emails to the entire class fairly easily (enter text in a box, select which students of that class to send to, hit submit).
It's okay, but there are definitely some issues. Like, not being very user-friendly (I constantly help out my instructors with how to use it). Also it doesn't work very well in Chrome =/
Re: Instructure Launches To Root Blackboard Out Of Universities
#25I hope they are successful.
Not sure I would have used the slide about Napoleon's march into Russia though.
Re: Instructure Launches To Root Blackboard Out Of Universities
#26Best of luck to them. It's quite difficult to convince faculty to switch over from tools they are comfortable using -- especially porting over their existing lessons and modules. Focusing on the UI is definitely the right approach as Bb is clearly lacking in this space. Regardless, the LMS market is long overdue for a shake up. On another note, many universities already run and contribute to the open source Sakai LMS…
> It's quite difficult to convince faculty to switch over from tools they are comfortable using This statement assumes faculty are comfortable using Blackboard... I have yet to meet one who is. I've had to use it for my TA duties and the expression about running nails across a chalkboard is ripe for a pun.
When I was at NYU, we all had blackboard. We mostly used various google offerings to route around it (google groups for class mailings, google docs for sharing, etc).
Re: Instructure Launches To Root Blackboard Out Of Universities
#27Any bets on how long before they are sued by Blackboard?
I asked pg at startup school about doing an edtech startup, and his answer was something like "Well, schools move to slowly to ever get traction, but if you ever did get traction, Blackboard would sue the crap out of you immediately." (That said, I'm still planning an edtech startup. Best of luck to instructure!)
Either that or they'd buy them out. Or they might use a lawsuit to convince them to sell at firesale prices.
Re: Instructure Launches To Root Blackboard Out Of Universities
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
I asked pg at startup school about doing an edtech startup, and his answer was something like "Well, schools move to slowly to ever get traction, but if you ever did get traction, Blackboard would sue the crap out of you immediately." (That said, I'm still planning an edtech startup. Best of luck to instructure!)
Does Blackboard have some patents in the space that they leverage when suing? On what grounds do they sue?
Yes, an analysis here: http://mfeldstein.com/blackboard_patents_the_lms/ The executive summary is "any groupware that involves student interaction."
Re: Instructure Launches To Root Blackboard Out Of Universities
#29For my computer architecture class at Berkeley, they decided to give Bb a try. It lasted about three weeks before they gave up and reverted to the tried and true command-line scripts for submitting assignments and viewing grades. Hopefully canvas will fare a little better.
Re: Instructure Launches To Root Blackboard Out Of Universities
#30Any bets on how long before they are sued by Blackboard?
Looks like these guys are open source. Blackboard has some kind of a "pledge" on their site not to sue open source projects.
EDIT, Found it: http://www.blackboard.com/About-Bb/Patents/Patent-Pledge.asp...