Just three months ago, the University of Michigan and Indiana University made a joint decision to “pause investment” in the Sakai OAE project. The latest news is that the University of California Berkeley and Charles Sturt University (in Australia) have also decided to leave the Sakai OAE project. The only schools remaining as part of […]
WCET Conference Oct 31 – Nov 3 in San Antonio
Just a quick note that I’ll be at the WCET conference in San Antonio this year, participating in two sessions and attending the Annual Meeting: Academic Leadership Forum (Invitation Only) Oct 31, helping moderators Greg Von Lehmen and Karan Powell and the topic “What Is Learning in a Mobile World.” “Beyond the LMS – What’s Next?” Discussion Nov […]
Google Introduces Course Builder, an Open Source Project Targeted at MOOCs (but the Real Competitor Might Be Amazon)
Google quietly made an educational technology announcement yesterday about the release of Course Builder, an “open source project” targeted at massive open online courses (MOOCs). This platform follows on the heels of Google’s own MOOC this summer. We should find out more information over the coming months, but here are my initial observations after reading the Research Blog on Google’s […]
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 […]
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) […]
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 […]
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, […]