e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Tag: Wikipedia

  • Social Media, Social Activism, and Edupatents

    Back when the Blackboard patent and lawsuit first surfaced in July of 2006, social software was still a pretty new thing. There was a fair bit of surprise in the community when the Wikipedia page on the History of the Virtual Learning Environment, created in large part to gather prior art for the suit, generated 160 entries in just a couple of weeks. As of this writing, there are 160 members of the Fans of D2L Million$Mission Facebook group just a few days after its creation. 

    It will be interesting to see how Facebook impacts the voice that ordinary teachers and students have in this drama. The barrier to entry is certainly lower that it was with the Wikipedia page; you don’t have to know wiki markup and you don’t have to have historical content to contribute in order to participate. Many more people are involved in social networks now, and the viral nature of Facebook is very different than that of Wikipedia. And finally, the people who sign up for the group on Facebook have names and profiles attached to them. It’s much less anonymous. So we’ll know more about who is voicing support than we did in 2006.

    What we won’t necessarily know is why. That’s why I have created a discussion thread in the group asking people to post their reasons. If you joined (or will join) this group, please take a minute on that thread to explain why you are supporting the Million$Mission.

  • The Pirate Hoax

    A friend asked me what I think about the story in the Chronicle about the professor who encouraged his students to create a hoax story about a pirate in order to teach them about students about vetting the quality of their sources as part of a history class. They created a blog about the fake history and added a Wikipedia page about the fictional pirate. Then they “Facebooked, Twittered, and Shoutwired it.” The professor pulled the plug when he found out that some of his historian colleagues were buying into the hoax.

    So what do I think of it? I think it stinks.

    (more…)

  • Blackboard and D2L Markman Filings Are Up

    Thanks to Seb for the reference.

    D2L has posted the latest filings from both sides, detailing their competing interpretations of Blackboard’s patent. (Before you can decide if somebody has infringed on a patent, you first have to decide what that patent means.) The judge will evaluate these competing claims in what’s known as a Markman hearing.

    I haven’t read the documents, but according to Seb, D2L’s filing references the Wikipedia page on the History of Virtual Learning Environments that the ed tech community collectively created in response to the Blackboard patent. If you contributed to that page (and hundreds of people did), then give yourself a pat on the back. You played a small role in the legal history of our profession.

  • IMS Report on Learning Technology Satisfaction and Trends

    The IMS has issued a new report with the somewhat imposing title, “IMS GLC Learning Technology Satisfaction and Trends, North American Higher Education, 05 February 2007 Update.” You can get it here, but first you’ll have to register with the site (if you haven’t done so already). It’s important to read Section 2 of the report (and particularly the “Survey Approach and Disclaimers” subhead) carefully; it is very difficult to get definitive data for this kind of research, and the authors of the report were very careful to spell out the limitations of their methods.

    Nevertheless, there’s lots of interesting stuff here. Here are some of my own observations, in no particular order:
    (more…)

  • Still Looking for Prior Art Info on Prometheus

    If you have any info on the early days of Prometheus, including when it was built and what its features set was on or before June 1998, please post it to the Wikipedia page. This could be quite important.

  • Is Prometheus a Big Problem for Blackboard?

    I’ve been thinking lately about the fact that almost none of the prior art listed in the Wikipedia entry was in Blackboard’s patent filing. It’s remarkable, really, since they are legally obligated to list any potential prior art of which they are aware at the time of filing. Failing to do so would constitute fraud. This is just one of several ways in which the application appears to be very sloppy.

    I was thinking about this again when I received an email from a colleague pointing out that Prometheus is not yet listed in our prior art documentation effort. And it looks like Prometheus could present a really big legal problem for Blackboard. (more…)

  • NoEduPatents.org Wiki

    Since we’ve already reached the limits of the prior art documentation we can feasibly do within the bounds of Wikipedia’s mission, there is now room to add at the NoEduPatents.org wiki. Please note the drill-down to the Blackboard-specific area.

    Go to town, folks.