e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Tag: Delta Initiative

  • Guest Blog at WCET: Institutional Decision-Making and Changing LMS Market

    Today I had a guest post at WCET’s blog. WCET is a great organization that “accelerates the adoption of effective practices and policies, advancing excellence in technology-enhanced teaching and learning in higher education”. They have been leaders in sharing best practices for online education, including taking a leading role on explaining State Authorization regulations as well as others. You can read the full post here.

    The topic of the post is how the changing LMS / Learning Platform market is, or should be, changing institutional decision-making.

    We have seen a great deal of change in the higher education Learning Management System (LMS) market over the past year, as has been described in several blog posts. One of the biggest changes to the market that I’ve noticed is that we seem to be moving from an enterprise LMS market, with full-featured monolithic systems, into a learning platform market, with many cloud-based platforms that don’t attempt to have all the features in one system.

    As Ritchie Boyd has described, the WCET LMS Common Interest Group (CIG) is recasting itself this year as “the ‘Beyond the LMS’ Common Interest Group. The idea is to not ignore the LMS, but rather to acknowledge that there is so much more going on in the broader academic technology ecosystems and their impact on our campuses, and that much of this activity often includes or is enveloped by the formal LMS.”

    In last year’s WCET-sponsored Managing Online Education survey, 47% of respondents indicated they are reviewing their LMS strategy and 27% are planning to change LMS within 2 years. A key question arises, however, about how institutions should adapt their technology decision-making processes based on these market changes. It’s all well and good for the market to change and provide more choices and new approaches, but how should schools decide which system(s) best fit their specific academic and administrative needs? The emergence of new, often free, cloud-based learning platforms may require changes to our decision-making.

    (more…)

  • Four Initial Answers from Apple’s Education Announcement

    In a recent post I offered four key questions for the Apple Education Announcement held today (Jan 19th). Now that the event is over and the blogosphere is responding, I thought it would be useful to answer those four questions. Once I’ve had time to digest all the information coming out, I’ll post more of an analysis.

    1. Regarding textbook content, will the model follow iTunes, iBooks, or Amazon’s Kindle Self-Publishing?

    The answer to this question is that we have a new hybrid model that attempts to takes elements from all three models mentioned in the question, at least for the K-12 market that was the focus of initial efforts.

    • Like iTunes, it places an affordable maximum price of $14.99.
    • Like iBooks, it allows the content creator to set its price (although within the $0.00 to $14.99 range).
    • Like Amazon’s Kindle Self-Publishing, it democratizes textbook creation and distribution, providing an attractive path that could avoid traditional textbook publishers.

    (more…)

  • The Tide is Turning – SOPA May Not Make It Out of Committee

    Over the past few days, there have been three significant developments that indicate the tide is turning on SOPA (and the Senate version, PIPA). As I have written previously, SOPA poses a threat to open education and educational technology in general, while most educational publishers are actively supporting this legislation. At the end of 2011, SOPA appeared to be likely to pass, with strong bipartisan support for the legislation. Since that time, there is a growing backlash, particular from technology companies as well as online communities such as Reddit. This backlash is having a real effect, and as of this weekend,  SOPA may not even make it out of the House Judiciary committee.

    (more…)

  • Four Key Questions for the Apple Education Announcement

    There is growing buzz online about Apple’s planned media event on January 19th in New York City. Most speculation is focused on Apple distributing textbooks through iTunesU, as described in a New York Times blog. The basis for most speculation seems to be the short comments in the Walter Isaacson official biography of Steve Jobs. This information, along with some additional inside sources have led the NYT blogger Nick Wingfield to suggest that textbooks might be offered for free. In a post on Mashable, Kate Freeman suggests a partnership with publishers such as Pearson Education.

    (more…)

  • Analysis of Blackboard Response to Recent Disclosure of Security Vulnerabilities

    There’s been an interesting set of public relations based on the recent news of Blackboard security vulnerabilities.  SC Magazine’s Australian edition broke a story on September 16 about an investigation by two or more anonymous Australian universities working with a security firm, Securus Global.  In conjunction with the magazine, this investigation exposed a number of security vulnerabilities with Blackboard Learn 8.0, 9.0 and 9.1 (the mainline legacy LMS from Blackboard, but not the WebCT or ANGEL acquired LMS product lines).  Blackboard has confirmed the majority of the issues are valid and issued a security advisory on September 16, subsequently updated on September 22.

    That is where the agreements stop, however.  Blackboard took issue with the tone of the article in a blog post from September 23, subsequently updated on September 27.  Blackboard disputes the assertions that they were not responsive to customer requests, and further, they are trying to downplay the significance of the vulnerabilities. (more…)

  • Breaking Up the LMS: K-12 District Selects Part of LoudCloud Systems’ LMS

    This is a guest post by Phil Hill from Delta Initiative, follow on Twitter  @PhilOnEdTech or his blog

    It’s been a busy week for LMS announcements, and I expect more announcements leading up to EDUCAUSE.  First, the Hawaii Virtual Learning Network (for K-12) is moving from Moodle to Blackboard, which as Michael Feldstein points out, is a new development to watch.  Then Brown University announced they are moving from Blackboard to Instructure’s Canvas as their LMS.  This morning, Jefferson County school district, the largest district in Colorado, announced that they have chosen a module from  LoudCloud Systems’ LMS as the basis for their Instructional Improvement System.

    That’s right – they purchased a module from the overall LMS.  Normally I cover higher ed more than K-12, but this announcement is worth watching since it shows how the New Mentality in LMS Market is or will be changing our expectations on what an LMS can provide.

    (more…)

  • Brown University moving from Blackboard to Instructure’s Canvas LMS

    This is a guest post by Phil Hill from Delta Initiative, follow on Twitter  @PhilOnEdTech or his blog

    Brown University announced today that they will be moving from MyCourses, which is their branded version of Blackboard Campus Edition (formerly WebCT), to Instructure’s Canvas LMS.  They have already been piloting the Instructure system, and plan to fully move into the new system by Spring 2013.  The Computing and Information Services (CIS), aided by the Academic Technology Steering Committee, started the move to replace MyCourses after Blackboard announced it would end support for Campus Edition by October 2012.  Brown University had been on the WebCT / Blackboard system since 2002.

    (more…)