Comments on: Bad News for Blackboard, Good News for Moodle

by: Mickey Slimp

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:36:23 +0000

Related to Vivie’s comments about ETUDES usage increasing, there is no reason to doubt that is right. Note that the survey was of AACC members as opposed to ETUDES Consortium Members so that the data would only apply to trends at the member Community Colleges. That’s a caveat that would apply with all of the findings.

To get a copy of the complete survey contact ITC at cmullins@itcnetwork.org.

by: E-learning links : ChrisGribble.com

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:49:56 +0000

[…] Moodle vs Blackboard/WebCT […]

by: Michael Feldstein

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:57:05 +0000

Steven, you ask a very interesting question–one that I’d like to see put to Blackboard’s executive leadership. By both independent measures (like this survey, which covers one particular market segment) and Blackboard’s own reported figures of total numbers of Basic and Enterprise customers, they are losing LMS licensing customers at a rapid pace. So when Bb talks about their “renewal rate,” what, exactly, is being renewed? And by whom?

by: Steven

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:53:56 +0000

Ah the brilliance of a publicly traded company. Their renewal rate has not sunk so how have they lost marketshare?

by: Lisa Neal

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:26:11 +0000

This is a great report and thanks for pointing it out. I’m curious about, and wonder if you have insights, about the differences between the administrators who make the decisions, the people who are impacted in terms of the design and capabilities (faculty), and the end users (students). Also, what do you think of tech populism and the differences and discrepancies between the tools students are given and what they use for their non-academic lives?

by: Vivie Sinou

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:14:42 +0000

I wonder if their data is as inaccurate across the report as they are in their comments about us:

“…while Etudes and Sakai were down slightly.”

I can’t speak for Sakai, but I don’t know where they got their information about ETUDES. We had 100% renewals in our contracts from our consortium schools last year. Additionally, we got a new member (El Camino College dropped Bb for ETUDES) and Mira Costa College joined us for a pilot. 100% renewals are expected for 2008-09, as per responses from all my ETUDES Consortium Distance Learning contacts.

The truth is that we have been in heads-down mode in the last 17 months with aggressive development of Mneme - Test Center and massive migration of users over from our legacy system and Blackboard, and we did not focus on growth at all, but we didn’t lose any members either.

Having said that, their statement above is insignificant. We are very small in this space at the moment. I just wanted to set the record straight….

by: Michael Korcuska

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 17:27:19 +0000

Good post, Michael. It is worth mentioning that Etudes is a customized version of Sakai. Etudes is the consortium of more than 20 community colleges in California, led by Vivie Sinou’s team at Foothill College.