e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Author: Jim Farmer

  • Mellon Foundation RIT Project Concludes a Success

    This is a guest post by Jim Farmer. Apologies to Jim; this has been sitting in my inbox for a couple of weeks now.

    “The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is closing a grant program that financed a series of high-profile university software projects, leaving some worried about a vacuum of support for open-source ventures.”

    – Marc Parry, “In Potential Blow to Open-Source Software, Mellon Foundation Closes Grant Program,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 5 January 2010

    A closer analysis suggests the Mellon Foundation’s “Research in Information Technology” had already met its objectives. This announcement should be an opportunity for reflection and appreciation of what was accomplished.

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  • LETSI: HR-XML Consortium Seeks Cross-Domain Interoperability

    This is a guest post by Jim Farmer.

    “Learning, education, and HR standards communities have very little to show in terms of cross-domain standards interoperability and convergence despite significant investments over a period of more than a decade.” Chuck Allen, Executive Director of the HR-XML Consortium, made this assessment of standards that cross the boundaries of standards-setting bodies in a “White Paper” submitted to the LETSI SCORM 2.0 Workshop held October 15-17, 2008 in Pensacola, Florida. As learning systems exchange data with various administrative, ERP and human resources systems, standards are needed to avoid expensive continuous redundant software maintenance.

    Although Allen didn’t cite historical opportunities, during development of the HR-XML resume specification, the Consortium requested assistance from higher education in recording competencies and the description of academic work such as publications. Higher education did not respond.

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  • Blackboard, Inc. Analysis, Part 2: Financial Performance

    This is a guest post by Jim Farmer.

    Investors should be pleased with Blackboard’s stock prices. The stock prices consistently outperform the NASDAQ Composite Index. [1]

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    Financial analysts continue to rate the stock as outperforming the market with buy and strong buy recommendations. Each quarter Blackboard CEO Mike Chasen, CFO Mike Beach and Senior Vice President Mike Stanton brief analysts winning appreciative comments. They also make presentations at conferences of financial analysts with similar responses.

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  • Blackboard, Inc. Analysis, Part 1: Software Licenses

    This is a guest post by Jim Farmer.

    As the dominant supplier of learning system software, Blackboard Inc. is “mission critical” to colleges and universities in the U.S. It has been more than two years since Blackboard completed the acquisition of WebCT. Reviewing Blackboard’s performance may provide some insight.

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  • Social Constructivists and eLearning

    This is a guest post by Jim Farmer

    On July 15th Luke Fernandez, Weber State University and frequent Sakai contributor, posted “Moodle and Social Constructionism: Looking for the Individual in the Community” on Academic Commons. Broadly interpreting his post about attending the San Francisco MoodleMoot US 2008, he identified two issues: (1) How does the choice of an instructional method impact the design, development, or choice and use of a learning system? (2) And implicitly from his response to this conference, what conferences and conference programs increase the adoption and use of education methodologies and technologies? Both have been topics of discussion since the San Francisco MoodleMoot; this post responds to those issues.

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  • Moodle Developer Martin Dougiamas Honored at OSCON 2008

    This is a guest post by Jim Farmer.

    Martin Dougiamas was named Best Education Enabler at last week’s OSCON (Open Source Conference) 2008 in Portland. The Google-O’Reilly Open Source award was made for his contribution to Moodle, an open source learning system. This is the first year anyone from education was nominated for the annual awards.

    Other awards this went to Chris Messina as Best Community Amplifier, Angela Byron, as Best Contributor (Drupal), Andrew Tridgell for Best Interoperator (Samba and Rsync), and Harald Welte, gplviolations.org, as Defender of Rights.

    Accepting the award for Dougiamas, Remote-Learner.net CEO Bryan Williams “Thanked Google and O’Reilly for the award and their support of Moodle, and expressed Martin’s regrets for not being able to attend the conference in person. He was honored by this award.”

    “Moodle has a vibrant community of teachers, professors and business trainers collaborating on ways to improve learning. Moodle.org has become a real community of practice over the years for the advancement of online instructional design and student management.”

    The Moodle Foundation is located in Perth, Australia. Remote-Learner.net is a Moodle Partner.

  • The Second Anniversary: Blackboard v. Desire2Learn

    This is a guest post by Jim Farmer

    Two years ago while speaking at the Desire2Learn Users Conference, CEO John Baker learned that Blackboard Inc. accused Desire2Learn of infringing a Blackboard patent. Following a jury’s decision and failed attempts to reach a settlement, the dispute is now headed for appeal at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal District, the Patent Office has yet to rule on the two challenges to parent validity by the Software Freedom Law Center and Desire2Learn, and, according to The Chronicle’s Jeff Young, a new trial looms over the latest version of Desire2Learn’s software.

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