Blackboard Inc.

Company Information

Blackboard Inc. Nasdaq: BBBB is a software company based in Washington, DC, USA. Founded in 1997, Blackboard began as a consulting firm contracting to the non-profit IMS Global Learning Consortium. In 1998, Blackboard LLC merged with CourseInfo LLC, a small course management software provider that originated at Cornell University. The combined company became known as Blackboard Inc. The first line of e-learning products was branded Blackboard Courseinfo, but the Courseinfo brand was dropped in 2000.

In 2003, the company sued security researchers Billy Hoffman and Virgil Griffith for publishing, and planning to present, a paper highlighting security flaws in their Blackboard Transaction System.

Blackboard went public in June 2004. In February 2006, Blackboard completed a merger with rival WebCT Inc., forming the largest e-learning company in the United States in terms of total users. The resulting company retained the Blackboard name, and is headed by Blackboard's original President and CEO, Michael Chasen.

Products

Blackboard develops and licenses software applications and related services to over 2200 education institutions in more than 60 countries. These institutions use Blackboard software to manage e-learning, transaction processing and e-commerce, and online communities. Blackboard's product line includes:

• The Blackboard Academic Suite, consisting of
  • The Blackboard Learning System, a course management system
  • The Blackboard Community System, a community and portal system
  • The Blackboard Content System, a content management system

• The Blackboard Commerce Suite, consisting of
  • The Blackboard Transaction System, a Transaction Processing System tied to university IDs
  • The Blackboard Community System, an e-commerce front end for the Transaction System
  • Bb One, a network of commercial and retail business that accept Blackboard-powered debit card transactions

• The WebCT Academic Suite, consisting of
  • WebCT Vista, a course management system
  • WebCT Campus Edition, another course management system designed for institutions with existing enterprise capabilities.

Though Blackboard software is closed source, the company provides an open architecture, called Building Blocks, that can be used to extend the functionality of Blackboard products.

Blackboard patent on "Internet-based education support system and methods"

On January 17, 2006 Blackboard was granted US patent 6,988,138 on "Internet-based education support system and methods" (with other multinational patents having been issued or pending) with extensive claims over many features of VLEs (US patent 6,988,138). On July 26, 2006, the company issued a press release regarding its patent portfolio and on that day filed a lawsuit against Desire2Learn(D2L) for patent infringement, using the above patent to assert its rights under US patent law. The Complaint was filed in Federal Court in the Eastern District of Texas, Lufkin Division, a rural East Texas judicial district.

Many members of the open source elearning community felt that the patent award ignored the extensive (and enabling) prior art on elearning and distance education and started a Wikipedia page, History of virtual learning environments, and a Moodle Docs wiki page, Online Learning History, to document the extant examples of VLEs.

Some members of the educational community have called for a boycott of Blackboard, Inc. as evidenced by this example BoycottBlackboard.org website, to protest what is perceived as an attack on the educational industry.

See also

• Virtual learning environment
• History of virtual learning environments
• WebCT
• Desire2Learn
• Moodle
• Sakai Project
• .LRN
• Edumate
• LON-CAPA

External links

• Online Learning History
• Blackboard v. Desire2Learn
• Blackboard
• Blackboard's web page discussing patents, including a FAQ
• Blackboard vs. Moodle. A Comparison of Satisfaction with Online Teaching and Learning Tools
• Comparison of Blackboard and Sakai systems from Virginia Tech (pdf)
• Comparison of Blackboard and Scholar360
• Comparison of Blackboard and LON-CAPA from edutools.info