creative commons licensed via Flickr by Laura Burlton

Course Management System mega-giant Blackboard has just cut a deal to buy Angel for $95 million (Inside Higher Ed). This isn’t the first time Blackboard has been in the news with its competitors. In 2005 it bought out WebCT and has more recently sued Desire2Learn for copyright violation.

I haven’t used Blackboard in two years since I switched to a school that uses Moodle instead. I haven’t missed it, either. That’s not to imply that Moodle is perfect, but it has some definite advantages over Blackboard.

As open-source systems in general are becoming more popular, I’m curious whether there will be a greater shift in the future away from proprietary CMS giants to more open-source platforms. It’s interesting to see how instructors can teach courses entirely in non-CMS web 2.0 products like wikis, blogs, and other social media. Since I teach students from multiple schools, this method personally works better for me because it means avoiding the headache of arranging login IDs for non-UIUC students.

For the average instructor teaching students within the same school, however, is it worth sticking to a school-sponsored CMS because it’s supported by the school’s tech support office? Or, alternately, will more and more course activities take place in external, free web 2.0 forums?

Blackboard Buys Angel, Inside Higher Ed

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