Blackboard may lose Patent?

Saw this online today at the Chronicle, it's being talked about on many of the e-learning blogs.

The patent office began re-examining the 44 claims comprising Blackboard's patent in 2006 at the request of The Software Freedom Law Center.

As great as this is, this is only one positive step in a process that could take years. Good luck Desire2learn!

Blackboard wins case

Just read on Slashdot and on "The NOSE: Information Technology in Higher Education" blog that Blackboard won their case against Desire2Learn. From "The Nose":

The jury found Desire2Learn guilty of patent infringement. Although Blackboard sought $17 million in damages, the jury awarded $3.1 million ($2.5 million for "lost profits" and $630,000 for "royalties").

This is one of those Patent Troll moves, but unfortunately this gives Blackboard some good precendence to continue litigation against other LMS players.

A Canadian article at TheRecord paints Blackboard as being uncooperative and unlikely to compromise or settle, although the judge will probably press the parties to come to a royalty agreement. From the article:

Desire2Learn has several options on the table, including appealing the verdict; continuing to push the U.S. patent office to reconsider Blackboard's patent; and developing a software workaround that does not use the technology in dispute.

Good luck Desire2Learn!

Google before the Internet

We ran across these via the Google Operating System blog. It's fun to imagine what Google would have been like before the Internet.






Phone based "Question Desk" from 1924:









Google circa 1960:











Some people remember calling their local library help desk to get answers to questions - funny to think that we all have this information at our fingertips now.

SCORM and multiple SCOs

I've worked so much more with AICC than SCORM, but a friend had an interesting question. He's creating courses in Adobe Connect and Captivate for a client and he wants to break the course into multiple SCOs.

It seems that all the main courseware vendors these days just create single unit courses and basic manifest files and AICC course descriptor files. I guess it's easier and it makes it easier on the LMS.

Anyways, we manually edited the manifest file. For each SCO, we added a new record and the associated records. There is a tool called Dreamweaver Manifest Maker that will also help create these manifest files.

Apparently SCORM 1.2 doesn't support linking from one SCO directly to another. Only the SCORM runtime can launch another SCO.

SCORM 2004 supports this - it's referred to as "sequencing". One SCO can issue a "navigation request" to the runtime environment.

Serebra Connect offering free assessments

It looks like Serebra Connect is offering free assessment exams when you sign up for their mailing list at www.serebraconnect.com.

When you sign up, it presents you with a list of topics, including Microsoft Office, graphic design, communications, etc. You choose one, and it lets you write the exam for free. When you pass, you become qualified to become a freelancer/provider on Serebra Connect.

I signed up for a ASP.NET web programming exam - I could be a Serebra Connect qualified seller!

Very neat. Looking forward to November 1st.

Serebra Connect is on the way

It looks like Serebra Connect is on the way. A neat idea to take an established e-learning platform and expand it to help people find paying work doing small tasks on an outsource or freelance basis. There was an announcement at the Clinton Global Initiative regarding free "skills assessments".

While attending the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), a non-partisan project of the William J. Clinton Foundation, Ted Moorhouse, Chairman and CEO of Serebra said, "Through Serebra Connect, we will give them [people in developing countries] the opportunity to use their education to earn income - without leaving their home countries.

This is exciting stuff!

More information about the conference can be found here.

E-learning at Hogwarts?

With the stepping down of the IT Directory at Hogwarts, it looks like they won't be implementing e-learning anytime soon!

I made a thorough and elaborate PowerPoint presentation on the
benefits that an online learning management system would deliver for
faculty and students (Professor Snape's contemptuous dismissal of it
as the work of a "PowerPoint wizard" was uncalled for).

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/071807-hogwarts-it-director.html?t51hb&