Commentary - Blackboard's purchase of [insert name here]

From George Siemens - commentary on the way things are.  And as usual, I agree with Siemens, so in the sincerest form of flattery, I encourage you to read his full commentary but was particularly interested in sharing the following.  Areas of emphasis are mine.

elearnspace › Well Played, Blackboard

Blackboard’s purchase marks an important shift in trajectory – even maturation – for the LMS marketplace. Integration, not the platform itself, is now the critical focus. LMS companies have for years formed partnerships with content producers and with synchronous tools – I believe both BB and Desire2Learn had partnerships with Elluminate and Wimba. To be effective in the long term, large LMS companies will need to pull more and more of the education experience under their umbrella. Why? Well, technology is getting complex. Very complex. Which means that decisions makers are motivated (partly out of fear of appearing ill-informed, partly out of not wanting to take risks) to adopt approaches that integrate fairly seamlessly across the education spectrum. Why buy an LMS when you can buy the educational process?

This puts companies like Desire2Learn in a bind. I’ve met John Baker – CEO of Desire2Learn – numerous times. He’s an extremely informed and capable person. I suspect he has a good sense of the shift from LMS-as-platform to LMS-as-integration. And, in a small field like ours, the Elluminate/Wimba acquisition was probably signaled to insiders. But what does D2L do now that it has a competitor that has pulled a key market segment under its umbrella?

The most obvious response is to look for similar companies to purchase. But who is left? Blackboard did not buy into the synchronous education market with the Elluminate and Wimba purchase – they bought the market.

Organizing for Distance Education debate hits the mainstream media

What had been a lively discussion among distance education professionals has now gained a little steam and moves into a more mainstream media outlet - no doubt to draw some attention from more folks in academe.  Just passing this blurb from the Chronicle of Higher Education along as example of the conversation.

Texas A&M's Restructuring Stirs Debate Over Best Way to Run Online Programs - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Texas A&M's Restructuring Stirs Debate Over Best Way to Run Online Programs

By Marc Parry

One university's decision to close its central distance-education office has stirred a national debate over the best way to operate online programs.

Under a restructuring at Texas A&M University at College Station, individual colleges will now manage online learning. And tuition paid for those programs will flow directly through those colleges.

The decision follows a related move at the University of Texas system. As online education continues to grow, those reorganizations have prompted many educators to share their opinions about e-learning management on a listserv run by the technology cooperative WCET.

To some, decentralization is "doomed to failure." To others, a separate bureaucracy "simply doesn't make sense anymore." A third camp advocates a hybrid approach.

Chad Wootton, Texas A&M's associate vice president for external affairs, frames the question of managing online and traditional education like this: "Are we thinking of them as two separate educational opportunities? Or are we thinking of them as the educational opportunity of course delivery, and it just so happens to be a different delivery method?"