e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Tag: LMS

  • Why Moodle Matters

    For a large portion of our readers who deal mostly with US higher education, it could be easy to dismiss Moodle as an LMS and an idea past its prime. Market data from Edutechnica shows that since 2013 the number of adopting US institutions has hit a plateau, but the total number of students served (number of institutions using Moodle as primary LMS scaled by enrollment) has actually decreased. Gone are the days of UCLA, LSU, Athabasca, North Carolina Community Colleges, UNC Charlotte and other high-profile Moodle selections from the late 2000s. ((Disclosure: I helped UCLA with their LMS selection.)) Pop quiz: name the last significant LMS decision process in US higher ed that selected Moodle as a replacement for another system.

    . . .

    And yet no other academic LMS solution comes close to Moodle in terms of worldwide deployments and learners enrolled. Even if you’re a US college or university, consider several reasons why Moodle matters.

    Most Common LMS For Small Schools

    Again using Edutechnica data (this time from early 2014), for US institutions with enrollments of 2,500 FTE or less Moodle is the market leader, surpassing Blackboard Learn.

    Edutechnica Spring 2014 Small

    Most Prevalent LMS In The World Based On Self-Reported Data

    (more…)

  • Breaking: Totara LMS Forks From Moodle And Changes Relationship

    What interesting timing. Just as I published my interview with Martin Dougiamas, I was notified that Totara LMS, a Moodle derivative aimed at the corporate learning market, has forked from Moodle and is changing its relationship with the Moodle Community. From their newsletter released today (Sept 3 Australia time):

    The relationship between Totara and Moodle is changing

    We have made the carefully considered decision that from 2016 Totara LMS will no longer be in lockstep with Moodle. This will free the team at Totara Learning to focus on big leaps forward in usability and modernising the framework for our enterprise customers.

    Further down, Richard Wyles wrote an additional post explaining the fork, starting with his long-term relationship with Moodle. He then explains:

    Why are we forking?

    From 2016 onwards we will no longer be in lockstep. Totara LMS will progressively diverge from its Moodle foundations. (more…)

  • Interview With Martin Dougiamas On Changes To Moodle Community This Year

    In my post last week on Blackboard’s Moodle strategy in Latin America, I made the following observation:

    At the same time, this strategy and growth comes at a time where the Moodle community at large appears to be at an inflection point. This inflection point I see comes from a variety of triggers:

    • Blackboard acquisitions causing Moodle HQ, other Moodle Partners, and some subset of users’ concerns about commercialization;
    • Creation of the Moodle Association as well as Moodle Cloud services as alternate paths to Moodle Partners for revenue and setup; and
    • Remote-Learner leaving the Moodle Partner program and planning to join the Moodle Association, with its associated lost revenue and public questioning value.

    I’m working on a follow-up post that looks more deeply at these changes to the Moodle community, and as part of the research I’ve interviewed Martin Dougiamas, Moodle Founder and CEO, by email. Given Martin’s role, I wanted to avoid the risk of having his answers get buried within my upcoming analysis post; therefore, I’ve decided to publish the interview in full. The only changes I have made are for clarity: showing and correcting ((Changing references to “Remote Learner” to follow the proper “Remote-Learner” usage)) full names instead of acronyms ((For example, replacing “BB” with “Blackboard”, “NS” with “Nivel Siete”, etc)), correcting grammar, and reordering questions to show follow-up discussions in context.

    Phil: Given Blackboard’s trend in acquisitions for Moodle (Remote-Learner UK, X-Ray Analytics, Nivel Siete), and assuming these are not the last, how do these moves affect the Moodle community and future (including roadmap, Moodle HQ funding, whatever)? What are the biggest benefits and / or what are the risks and downsides?

    Martin: In any community there’s always going to be some concern about any one organisation trying to gain dominance. Our certified Moodle Partner program was designed specifically to avoid these kind of risks by building a large global network of different companies (currently 68 and growing, including Moonami and Elearning Experts recently in the US) who are committed to supporting Moodle HQ. The recent Blackboard acquisitions don’t bring any benefits to Moodle as a whole.
    (more…)

  • Reuters: Instructure has filed for IPO later this year

    Reuters is on a breaking news roll lately with ed tech. This time it is about Instructure filing for an initial public offering (IPO).

    Instructure is planning an initial public offering later this year that could value the education software company at $500 million to $800 million, according to people familiar with the matter.

    Instructure, based in Salt Lake City, has hired Morgan Stanley (MS.N) and Goldman Sachs (GS.N) to help prepare for the IPO, which has been filed confidentially, the people said. They requested anonymity because the news of the IPO was not public.

    Under the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, new companies that generate less than $1 billion in revenue can file for IPOs with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission without immediately disclosing details publicly.

    Instructure has long stated its plans to eventually IPO, so the main question has been one of timing. Now we know that it is late 2015 (assuming Reuters story is correct, but they have been quite accurate with similar stories). (more…)

  • Online Teaching Conference (#CCCOTC15) Keynote

    Back in June I had the pleasure of giving the keynote at the Online Teaching Conference (#CCCOTC15) in San Diego, put on by the California Community College system. There was quite a bit of valuable backchannel discussions as well as sharing of the slides. The theme of the talk was:

    Emerging Trends in Online / Hybrid Education and Implications for Faculty

    As online and hybrid education enter the third decade, there are significant efforts to move beyond the virtualization of traditional face-to-face classroom and move more towards learner-centric approaches. This shift has the potential to change the discussion of whether online and hybrid approaches “can be as good as” traditional approaches to a discussion of how online and hybrid approaches “can provide better learning opportunities”.

    For those who would like to see the keynote, I am including the video and slides below. Pat James’ introduction starts at 05:50, and my keynote starts at 09:15.

    (more…)

  • Blackboard Potential Sale: Market timing, financials, and some thoughts on potential buyers

    With Reuters’ story last week that Blackboard is putting itself up for sale through an auction, one question to ask is ‘why now?’. As Michael has pointed out, Blackboard is in the midst of a significant, but incomplete and late, re-architecture of its product line.

    Bottom line: If you think that Ultra is all about playing catch-up with Instructure on usability, then the company’s late delivery, functionality gaps, and weird restrictions on where the product can and cannot be run look pretty terrible. But that’s probably not the right way to think about Ultra. The best analogy I can come up with is Apple’s Mac OS X. In both cases, we have a company that is trying to bring a large installed base of customers onto a substantially new architecture and new user experience without sending them running for the hills (or the competitors). This is a really hard challenge.

    Market Timing

    On the surface, it seems to be a high-risk move to try and sell a company before the changes are solidly in place and customers have demonstrated that they will move to new architecture rather than “running for the hills”.

    Assuming that the Reuters story is accurate, I believe the answer to the question on ‘why now’ is that this move is about market timing – Blackboard wants to ride the current ed tech investment wave, and Providence Equity Partners (their owners) believe they can get maximum value now. This consideration trumps the otherwise logical strategy of waiting until more of the risk from the new user experience and cloud platform roll-out is removed by getting real products into significant number of customers’ hands. VC investment and M&A activity are at high and potentially unsustainable levels. 2U has shown that ed tech companies can go public and be a success. Lynda.com has shown that relatively mature companies can be acquired for very high valuations. Instructure is likely to go public in early 2016. If you want to get a high price, sometimes it’s worth going on a hot market before addressing most of the re-architecture risk. (more…)

  • Reuters: Blackboard up for sale, seeking up to $3 billion in auction

    As I was writing a post about Blackboard’s key challenges, I get notice from Reuters (anonymous sources, so interpret accordingly) that the company is on the market, seeking up to $3 billion. From Reuters:

    Blackboard Inc, a U.S. software company that provides learning tools for high school and university classrooms, is exploring a sale that it hopes could value it at as much as $3 billion, including debt, according to people familiar with the matter.

    Blackboard’s majority owner, private equity firm Providence Equity Partners LLC, has hired Deutsche Bank AG and Bank of America Corp to run an auction for the company, the people said this week. [snip]

    Providence took Blackboard private in 2011 for $1.64 billion and also assumed $130 million in net debt.

    A pioneer in education management software, Blackboard has seen its growth slow in recent years as cheaper and faster software upstarts such as Instructure Inc have tried to encroach on its turf. Since its launch in 2011, Instructure has signed up 1,200 colleges and school districts, according to its website.

    This news makes the messaging from BbWorld as well as their ability to execute on strategy, particularly delivering the new Ultra user experience across all product lines – including the core LMS – much more important. I’ll get to that subject in the next post. (more…)