Phil and I don’t write a whole lot about Student Information Systems (SISs) and the larger Enterprise Resource Management (ERP) suites that they belong to, not because they’re unimportant but because the stories about them often don’t fit with our particular focus in educational technology. Plus, if I’m being completely honest, I find them to […]
Instructure
Dammit, the LMS
Count De Monet: I have come on the most urgent of business. It is said that the people are revolting! King Louis: You said it; they stink on ice. – History of the World, Part I Jonathan Rees discovered a post I wrote about the LMS in 2006 and, in doing so, discovered that I […]
State of the US Higher Education LMS Market: 2014 Edition
I shared the most recent graphic summarizing the LMS market in November 2013, and thanks to new data sources it’s time for an update. As with all previous versions, the 2005 – 2009 data points are based on the Campus Computing Project, and therefore is based on US adoption from non-profit institutions. This set of longitudinal […]
Blackboard’s Perceptis Acquisition Offers Clues into Company’s Strategy
Yesterday Blackboard announced that they acquired Perceptis, a provider of help desk and financial aid support services for colleges and universities. In and of itself, this is not a huge acquisition. Perceptis has 33 clients, offers services that Blackboard was already offering, and has no substantial new technology. But as we approach BbWorld next week, […]
Instructure’s CTO Joel Dehlin Abruptly Resigns
One week after the conclusion of Instructure’s Users’ Conference, CTO Joel Dehlin abruptly resigned from the company for a new job. Joel took the CTO job with Instructure in summer 2013, around the same time as Devlin Daley’s departure (Devlin was co-founder). Joel’s resignation comes as a surprise, especially given his prominent placement as the technology lead for […]
InstructureCon: Canvas LMS has different competition now
For the first few years of the Canvas LMS, Instructure’s core message was ‘Canvas is better than Blackboard’. This positioning was thinly veiled in the company’s 2011 spoof of the Apple / 1984 commercial and even hitting the level of gloating in a company blog commenting on Blackboard’s strategy reversal in 2012. Instructure made their name by being […]
Unizin membership fee is separate from Canvas license fee
With Unizin going public yesterday, I’ve been looking over our three posts at e-Literate to see if there are any corrections or clarifications needed. Unizin: Indiana University’s Secret New “Learning Ecosystem” Coalition Why Unizin is a Threat to edX Unizin: What are the Primary Risks? Based on yesterday’s press release, official web site release and […]