Blackboard has been awarded an incredibly broadly worded US patent that covers most of the basic functions of a modern LMS system. Just read the patent abstract:
- A system and methods for implementing education online by providing institutions with the means for allowing the creation of courses to be taken by students online, the courses including assignments, announcements, coursematerials, chat and whiteboard facilities, and the like, all of which are available to the students over a network such as the Internet. Various levels of functionality are provided through a three-tiered licensing program that suits the needs of the institution offering the program. In addition, an open platform system is provided such that anyone with access to the Internet can create, manage, and offer a course to anyone else with access to the Internet without the need for an affiliation with an institution, thus enabling the virtual classroom to extend worldwide.
Having read thru the whole text of the patent I must confess I'm very surprised. Being an Icelandic I'm not familiar with the US patent process and the rules and regulation regarding it. But this surely cant be right? I simply don't understand how the fundemental processes of a learning management system can be patented like this. Processes like posting assignments and resources online and giving grades. To me it sounds like Blacboard is claming to have invented the modern LMS! That's a bold statement coming from a company that can hardly be described as cutting edge when it comes to being creative in developing tomorrows technology for teaching and learning online. I would award that title to the numerous open source LMS systems out there who have without any doubt been much more inventive and productive in that area. Buying out competitors does not count as creative leadership in my vocabulary. I'm very interested in learning more about this patent. What does it really mean? What are Blackboard intentions? What will the reactions of other LMS vendors be?
p.s. I'm thinking outloud here but perhaps this agressive move by Blackboard could in the end hasten the development as well as increase the importance of the next generation of learning management systems. One could even speculate if this will cause the many open source systems, such as Moodle to evolve even faster. Perhaps this will direct more attention to the much discussed personal learning environment and social systems like ELGG?
Now that Blackboard has patented the vision of a LMS system many forward thinking developers consider old and outdated maybe the time has come to move on? I honestly don't know. But this I'm sure of. If Blackboard executives think they can use their patent to bully vendors, users and other LMS developers they will be proven wrong.
