This is a guest blog post by Jim Farmer, Coordinator, Scholarly Systems Group at Georgetown University and editor at the eReSS project, University of Hull.
On September 4, 2007, a summer morning in Adelphi, Maryland, the workgroup, breakfast in hand, slowly assembled into in a large conference room at the University of Maryland, University College (UMUC). [...]
I just got back from the EDUCAUSE conference and man, do I have a lot to write about. I’m going to start with the IMS’s announcement of the new Common Cartridge standard. Now, I know that technical standards aren’t always the stuff that gives you goosebumps. But if you are a teacher–particularly a unionized teacher–pay [...]
A while back, IMS CEO Rob Abel was kind enough to comment on my post regarding the potential impact of patents on educational technology standards. As part of his summary at the end of the comment, he wrote,
It’s difficult for Blackboard or any other vendor to “game” the standards process in IMS due to our [...]
Blackboard’s General Counsel Matthew Small has said that their patent and lawsuit is “not about hindering innovation.” It’s important that we not allow this claim to go unchallenged. I’d like to start gathering concrete examples of initiatives that are beneficial to the educational community and could be directly harmed by Blackboard’s actions. I’ll start. The [...]
