This has been a tough week for open education, at least in higher education. First came the news that Georgia Tech has taken down a 14-year-old student wiki site that allowed discussions and collaboration across courses and across semesters. Next came the news of more details on proposed intellectual property laws in Congress, dubbed SOPA […]
Rhiz-o-Matic: Scaling the MOOC
And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin’ a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out? They may think it’s an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singin’ a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out? […]
A “Bold Idea” Essential for Student Privacy
In Tracy Mitrano’s October 31, 2001 blog “FERPA, GLBA and HIPAA In Vendor Contract,” there was “a bold proposal.” She posited that most important action that can be taken to protect student privacy is a contractual requirement that contractors follow the same privacy requirements—including FERPA (Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act)—as colleges and universities themselves […]
Instructure and Security Testing
Instructure has had a very interesting reaction to the news and blogs about security vulnerabilities with Blackboard’s Learn LMS several months ago. They have decided to engage Securus Global, the same firm that did the ethical hacking for the Australian universities in the Blackboard investigation, to test Instructure’s Canvas LMS product. They have also invited me […]
What If OpenClass Succeeds in Disrupting LMS Market?
Right now the e-Literate site is close to over-heating from Michael’s voluminous posts – all very thoughtful, but we’re going to need some WordPress coolant. During discussions over the past week in person and over blogs, I’ve had three people ask essentially the same question – will Pearson’s OpenClass LMS offering and associated corporate strategy […]
The Sakai/Jasig Merger Plans
After years of stasis and even atrophy, the educational technology markets are suddenly hot. New LMS players like Instructure are making major wins and market share is shifting rapidly across all the major players. Educational technology startups are sprouting up and getting funded at an unprecedented rate. Blackboard’s announcement of support for producing, discovering, and […]
Openness: The Proof of the Pudding is in the Eating
In my last post, I said that I thought Blackboard’s announcement of making it easy to add a Creative Commons license to a Common Cartridge export is significant. One day later, we have some evidence of just how significant. e-Literate featured blogger Audrey Watters has a post up on her own blog about a big announcement […]