Forum LAMS Newsletter: Newsletter 48, 5th Nov, 06

By: James Dalziel

[ Forward ]

LAMS Conference - Awards Details released

As part of the LAMS conference in December, there will be three awards:

1. Best design for a LAMS sequence (Open Award)

2. Best student designed sequence in LAMS (Student Award)

3. Best technical contribution (Technical Award)

The technical contribution award will be for a new tool designed for LAMS.

Submissions are due by November 20th.

For further details of the awards, including entry forms, see
http://lamsfoundation.org/lams2006/awards.htm


ACODE presentation on open source, intellectual property and patents

Following up on last week's comments on Blackboard's LMS patent, I gave a presentation on open source, intellectual property and patents at an ACODE (Australasian Council on Open, Distance and E-learning) workshop at UNSW in Sydney on Nov 3rd, 2006. The presentation is available at
http://www.lamscommunity.org/dotlrn/clubs/educationalcommunity/lamsresearchdevelopment/forums/message-view?message%5fid=324137

There was an interesting moment in the presentation when I put up the key paragraph from the EDUCAUSE letter to Blackboard about its LMS patent actions (noted in last week's newsletter). After reading it, I wondered aloud how many of the group would agree with it.

Unexpectedly, a number of people put up their hands, and so on the spur of the moment, I asked the whole group (about 35 in total, made up mostly of the heads of e-learning in Australasian universities) to raise their hands if they also agreed with the EDUCAUSE statement. While I didn't have a chance to count the forest of hands, it looked to be about two thirds of the group. So this provides a rough indicator of the current views of a key stakeholder group (almost all Australasian universities use Blackboard or WebCT software).

From informal discussions, I know a number of these universities are now considering a move to an open source LMS *because* of their unhappiness with Blackboard's patent actions. This switch won't be immediate - but if open source adoption grows among this group in 12-24 months time, I believe the patent lawsuit will have been a significant contributing factor. I just hope that before then Blackboard chooses to adopt the alternative approach recommended by EDUCAUSE.

Posted by James Dalziel