e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Author: Phil Hill

  • Clarification on Cloud, SaaS and Multi-tenant Language

    In several recent posts I have argued about the importance of cloud-based platforms, and Michael Feldstein has written some insightful analysis on the subject. Quite often the terms Cloud and SaaS (software as a service) are misunderstood, or at least used differently as the terms get redefined, which is common in technology markets.

    Last week I wrote a post that included a comment about Desire2Learn and their usage of cloud and SaaS terms.

    The terms cloud and SaaS, as used in Desire2Learn’s and NEA’s descriptions, tend to blur the distinction between Desire2Learn’s enterprise software virtualization model and multi-tenant platform models. Desire2Learn has made great strides in developing a virtualized cloud servers for business model that is not multi-tenant (where all or most clients run on the same defined application instance on the same version).  There are arguments that this issue only matters to the provider. I’ll write more on this subject in a subsequent post, but for now I’ll just point out that the cloud model used by Desire2Learn has significant differences with the model used by Instructure’s Canvas LMS, Pearson’s OpenClass, Lore’s platform, and the majority of new learning platforms coming out.

    John Baker, CEO of Desire2Learn, did not agree with this statement as shared in the comments.

    One key correction is that our Cloud or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions are multi-tenant. Multi-tenancy has been part of our solution for over a decade. It may also be important to point out that approximately 90 percent of our clients use our SaaS offering. We’d be happy to share more infromation with you and others on how we have evolved over the years.

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  • Desire2Learn Raises $80 Million in First-Time Venture Capital Funding

    Desire2Learn has been around since 1999, and John Baker, CEO and founder of the company, has made it a point of pride that the company has grown to over 500 employees without external funding. From a financial perspective, however, the Canadian company just reversed its long-standing approach and raised $80 million in venture capital (VC) funding. From a strategy perspective, there are no changes – rather a plan to accelerate the corporate growth based on the existing strategy. This might seem to be a large investment for this situation, but Desire2Learn’s two VC investors clearly think the possibilities are just now emerging.

    The two venture capital firms behind the investment are OMERS Ventures, the VC arm of a Canadian pension fund, and New Enterprise Associates (NEA), one of the lead investors in Coursera and Edmodo. The $80 million is the 5th largest north american series A VC deal and the largest ever VC deal for a Canadian software company.

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  • ANGEL LMS: Dead or Alive?

    After the recent news of two significant ANGEL LMS customers leaving for other vendors – Washington State Board of Community and Technical Colleges selected Instructure’s Canvas LMS in the spring, and Michigan State University selected Desire2Learn’s Learning Suite in the summer – there is an interesting question of whether ANGEL is still a viable LMS solution, at least for current clients.

    ANGEL was created at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis in 2000, and after a successful 9 years Angel Learning, the company behind ANGEL, was purchased by Blackboard in May 2009. Shortly after the purchase, Blackboard announced they would place ANGEL in end-of-life status by 2014. This decision to end ANGEL, along with a similar decision for WebCT product lines, has been fueling a large percentage of the LMS market churn over the past 2 – 3 years (more from WebCT than from ANGEL, however).

    In March 2012 Blackboard changed their strategy – no longer pushing all new “acquired” customers to migrate to the Learn 9.x platform, and instead looking to support multiple LMS solutions. The least discussed part of the March announcements was the decision to cancel the end-of-life notice for ANGEL. As described in an open letter to the community from Blackboard:

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  • Michigan State University Moves from Blackboard’s ANGEL LMS to Desire2Learn’s Learning Suite

    Michigan State University has been one of the most well-known implementations of the ANGEL LMS for the past 9 years. Penn State selected ANGEL in 2001 under an agreement that also provided the school perpetual access to the source code. The next major higher education institution to select the LMS was Michigan State in 2003, essentially putting ANGEL on the map as a significant LMS solution to compete with Blackboard, WebCT and Desire2Learn (which won the University of Wisconsin System contract in the same year).

    After a selection process triggered by the 2009 Blackboard acquisition of Angel Learning (parent company of ANGEL), Michigan State announced a decision at the end of July 2012 that the school will migrate to Desire2Learn’s Learning Suite as the new LMS. As described in The State News article:

    After many technical difficulties, lost homework assignments, complaints and deliberation, MSU announced Tuesday the selection of Desire2Learn, or D2L, as the university’s new online learning management system, or LMS.

    Blackboard’s purchase of the company that built ANGEL in 2009 was the push for MSU to officially start looking for a new LMS, Brendan Guenther, director of teaching and learning support teams in MSU Information Technology, said.

    MSU considered proposals from two systems to potentially replace ANGEL: Blackboard and D2L.

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  • Competency-Based Education: A Primer for Today’s Online Market

    As I described in my most recent post, the competency-based movement is finally gaining momentum based on recent announcements. But what actually is “competency-based education” and why has it taken so long to expand beyond Western Governors University?

    I’m not an expert in the academic theory and background of outcomes and competencies, so in this post I’ll summarize the key points from various articles as they relate to the current market for online programs. Links are included for those wanting to read in more depth.

    What is Competency-Based Education?

    SPT Malan wrote in a article from 2000 about the generally-accepted origins:

    Competency-based education was introduced in America towards the end of the 1960s in reaction to concerns that students are not taught the skills they require in life after school.

    Competency-based education (CBE) is based on the broader concept of Outcomes-based education (OBE), one that is familiar to many postsecondary institutions and one that forms the basis of many current instructional design methods. (more…)

  • Competency-Based Online Education: The Rising Tide of College Affordability

    One of the interesting trends over the past year or two is the emergence of educational delivery models as a locus of innovation – with new business models, applications of technology, and tight integrations of educational content and delivery platforms. In part 1 of this series, I described a new landscape of educational delivery models. In part 2 I described the master course concept that is the basis for most scalable for-profit and not-for-profit online programs. In part 3 and part 4 I described the emergence of MOOCs as well as four barriers they must overcome to become self-sustaining. In this post, I’d like to focus on the less glamorous, but perhaps more significant, movement in self-paced and competency-based online education.

    Consider that just two years ago Western Governors University stood almost alone as the competency-based model for higher education, but today we can add Southern New Hampshire University, the University of Wisconsin System, Northern Arizona University, StraighterLine and Excelsior College.

    Let’s review some of the recent announcements of competency-based programs.

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  • Online Education and the College Crisis: A Student’s View

    There are a lot of useful opinions and debates on the role of online education in solving various problems of higher education, but I find that we too often lack the student’s view on the subject. Towards that end, I am sharing the comments from a student about affordable access to the courses needed for a degree and one role of online education. The student is my daughter, Hillary Hill, who is entering her second year at a California State University campus.

    “We should change the name of this [Sonoma State University Class of 2015] group to “Sonoma State University Class of 2056.”

    “I am not even a full time student…”

    “I’m not paying double what I used to to not get classes!”

    These are just a few of the Facebook posts I read from my friends on the day of open registration for Fall 2012 started. At 9 AM, MySSU [portal and administrative system] went live, and students scrambled to get units. Unfortunately, there were very few units to be had. People are stuck taking classes they don’t need or want just for the unit value, and even they are better off than the ones who couldn’t even register for 12 units (the amount which makes you a full-time student). To make matters worse, MySSU shut down before it even reached 10 AM. Students who had taken off work or postponed plans were stuck refreshing their webpages in the hopes they’d be the first person on when it came back.

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