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If there is specific software you are interested in, I can post some companies that provide the business services around the software, while supporting the core development team.

As one example Moodle is an open source learning management system (online campus) with 80 third-party companies who can set it up, configure and customize it, write custom modules, host it, and maintain it, provide training, etc (whichever more of services your school or company needs). Each of these contributes funds back to Moodle HQ
https://moodle.com/partners/

Your agency could have bought expert support for Moodle from a U.S. support partner.

Moodle is a Course Management System (CMS), also known as a Learning Management System (LMS) or a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). It is a Free web application that educators can use to create effective online learning sites.

It's also a good example of a successful FOSS project, with an active and growing user community, used by more than 38 million students in 212 countries, translated into 81 languages, and with thriving commercial support community.

Second language teaching is pretty big, some estimates run to 1 billion learning English alone, and the UK alone estimates that generates 1.3 billion pounds/year in revenue.

Moodle, is by most estimates the most widely used online learning software with 49,000 registered sites in 211 countries and is also an example of a successful open source project ecosystem with commercial support partners in many countries.

partners list

"What if development stops"? Well, if it's a commercial product you probably have support still, but no new features, and no where to go but migrate to a new provider. If it's GPL, then you still have support options (as shown above), in fact more options that commercial often, can support it yourself if you decide to, can take on development yourself or wait until someone continues the project... or worst case migrate, but as your content is in an open format (not the encrypted db blackboard had when I last dealt with it) it is likely to be an easier process.

I'm sure you know all of this, having entered into a RFP, but others may not.

Try using BlackBoard as an instructor. The layout is cluttered and terrible, and some key functionality is buried. Tech-saavy instructors don't have a problem with probing and clicking until they find the right control, but this is used by all sorts of people, many of whom may already have difficulties with seemingly basic online navigation. My issue with the BlackBoard patent is that this is a bloated system which could use improvement (and the ideas are definitely being improved upon, just look at Moodle and Sakai), but if they're going to chase down anyone who's improvements are too effective, then we're stuck with 1999 technology and a "figure it out yourself" approach to human-computer interaction. Moodle and Sakai certainly don't have the resources to combat a lawsuit, so more power to Desire2Learn, whatever power they might have. As for your "humorous" experience, an online course requires more planning from instructors than an in-person course. When that effort isn't put forth, it's often obvious. Additionally, there can be more required of students, as they may need to go to extra efforts to make forum postings or focus on the format of assignments. I'm not assuming that you're blaming the medium, but I hope that others reading your impressions don't come away with that notion. I have taken many online courses which were far more immersive and robust than most of the in-person courses I've had. -Jim

The interesting thing about Moodle (apart from being awesome software) is that there is a proper business plan behind it. The international network of commercial support organisations is a result of careful nurturing and management from Moodle HQ. (See Moodle Partners at http://www.moodle.com./

From one of the 27 Moodle partners:

Moodle.com

If you want to do development, then you'll need to hire someone who understands the code, but Moodle runs 'out of the box' if you have someone who knows how to set up a webserver (most of the problems on the Moodle "Installation problems" forum are from folks who don't know how to set up Apache/IIS).

As an aside note, we've gone through two searchs for Blackboard Administrators where I work, neither time did we find someone with BB Admin experience in the search.

I agree that having this kind of software is a must for any modern university. It's easier for the students, and in many cases easier for administrators. I've used WebCT from the teacher end, and it is certainly a savings in time and money to be able to post material online, which students can print (or not) depending on what suits them. The savings in paper are significant, and most importantly we can implement fixes to lab manuals (for instance) immediately, instead of students using a lab manual that was printed in the summer and whose errors cannot be fixed until next semester.

Overall these kinds of software help alot. That having been said, WebCT is not a very well designed piece of software, and frankly it is frustrating to use at times (for students and teachers alike). I certainly hope this merger means that they will develop a new piece of software, that pulls together the best parts of both packages. As is, WebCT is useable, but it has to become much much better if universities are going to modernize their teaching.

I'm definately interested in learning more about Moodle (which other posters have mentioned), since it's possible it may evolve to fill the needs of institutes faster than commercial offerings.

Moodle

The school I'm at made the shift and hasn't looked back(well, aside from the technophobe teachers who grumble about learning something new a few years after they started to grasp the old system).

with the Moodle LMS, as opposed to commercial Learning Management Systems's.

With Moodle, the free support has been very much better than the support that comes with a paid Blackboard or WebCT license.

And another nice thing is if you need it you can get paid support from a variety of partners, so if you don't like the paid support from one partner, you can choose another without having to switch LMSs--with the closed source systems there is only one source of support--the license provider. If they cut support to boost quarterly profits, you're SOL.

Since switching LMSs is a huge deal for a school, being able to choose from a range of support services is a pretty nice feature.

But you have to choose the right product--look for one with a vibrant, open, active community where the core developers participate often. With some open source products, the support is no better than Microsoft--they tend to be the ones where the developers don't participate in open discussion, where the community is asking alot more questions than are getting answered, etc.

Other great features are scaling clusters without added license costs, being able to test new versions extensively before putting into production, being able to run multiple versions without having to pay multiple fees, and of course bugs are fixed much more rapidly and generally just by changing the code directly without having to apply a 'patch' or shut down the system.

In the world of educational CMSes, Moodle is pretty much king of the roost. Not only has Martin Dougiamas helped build and direct a quality system that has a presence in over 100 countries (nearly 3000 registered sites), but he is successfully parlaying his expertise in service and support, providing the opportunity for others to become support "partners."

I have never been one to believe that's it's criminal to make a living off F/OSS. I think you can have it both ways, and Martin does a great job at proving this to be the case.

At the risk of being redundenter again:
http://www.moodle.com/

(Thought I'd follow up the 'death-to-Blackboard' rants with a constructive suggestion...)

If you want to ditch Blackboard, take a look at Moodle. It's a dang good PHP-based courseware system that's open source, free (in both senses), very actively developed, and (important for administration types) you can buy support and various other services via Moodle.com. You could set it up in your personal webspace as a sandbox for people to look at and play with.

Plus, you could have CS students write modules or otherwise contribute to development - everybody wins!

You can take a look at how other schools are using Moodle at their site list.

Enjoy!

The sound was fine, but my announcers appear
to be broken. They keep repeating the same
inane comments over and over. I can't tell
if it's just this implementation on the
bandwagon platform.

Is there an patch yet?
--
Moodle - Open source software for online education - http://moodle.com/

Don't worry, Australia has recently created an even more draconian censorship bill. :-(
--
Moodle - Open source software for online education - http://moodle.com/