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Blackboard and WebCT merge

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the writing-on-the-wall dept.

Acidangl writes "Blackboard and WebCT, leading providers of enterprise software and services to the education industry have announced plans to merge." From the article: "Under terms of the agreement, Blackboard will acquire WebCT in a cash transaction for $180 million, which values the offer at approximately $154 million, net of WebCT's August 31, 2005 cash balance of $26 million. The ultimate value of the offer will vary depending on WebCT's cash balance at closing."

23 of 277 comments (clear)

  1. Wow by zegebbers · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Given how many institutions use one of these or both, this will have a big impact on choice. Some of the horror stories that I've heard about webct admin aren't good. On the other hand, there was the Georgia Tech student who found the vulnerability in Blackboard.

    Hopefully someone can provide some sort of competition to this company.

    --
    Unpretentious Sydney reviews by unqualified Sydney reviewers
    1. Re:Wow by rovingeyes · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yup I'm privy to some of those horror stories, even though I'm just a backup sysadmin for Blackboard. No wonder universities got together for an alternate. It's not ready for primetime but if Bb doesn't get its act together I wouldn't be surprised to see Sakai gain momentum.

    2. Re:Wow by b17bmbr · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I used WebCT last year for an online class. I really didn't like it. Perhaps it is because I have been doing web development for years, I found the whole interface and page creation process totally distracting and useless. I also didn't like its test and quiz creation features. My district was part of a statewide testing program and we have settled on WebCT but I'd rather give teachers a choice or some more freedom. WebCT forced things to be a certain way far too much for my tastes. I imagine for someone with no experience designing web pages, then maybe it'll be helpful. But, it's just too confusing to create links, topics, etc. Overall I'd give it a C-. But then again, I was a little jaded. Also, the kids didn't like it too much either. They had trouble with some of the features and it was confusig for them.

      --
      My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
    3. Re:Wow by LoadStar · · Score: 4, Informative

      To clarify: the vulnerability that the Georgia Tech student found was in the Blackboard Commerce Suite, not the Academic Suite.

      The Commerce Suite was a product line purchased from AT&T several years ago, and is mostly seperate from the Academic Suite. This merger mostly affects the Academic Suite.

  2. Possible rising costs by ZerocarboN · · Score: 3, Interesting

    IS this the big break for Moodle?

    1. Re:Possible rising costs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I love moodle, I really do... I use it to run a small, private, online school and it runs very nicely. The BIG break for moodle however, will be when they clean up the code so that it runs faster and uses less cpu.

              Right now, one user simply clicking onto the main page, with no other connections to apache, is pushing an httpd process out to 21 meg of ram, and 19% of cpu. When someone actually does something, or when a whole class is connected, things go downhill a bit. No one's getting connection time outs that I know of, but I do worry about it.

          I'm using the best hardware I can afford to run it but I still have to put the database server on another machine or it just gets too laggy to be useful. I can't afford to just throw more hardware at it, so my little school remains private with very limited enrollment.

              I'm grateful that moodle is free and I love the software, but I'd love it even more if I could open my little school to the public and let anyone who wants to enroll, enroll.(grins)

      P.S. - My school is free, no teachers are paid and no students are charged, so extra hardware really is _not_ an option... I just have to hope they'll optimize it a bit :)

    2. Re:Possible rising costs by nietsch · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Your comments about unclean code ring so true with me. I tried once to extend a module of it. What should have been one day worth of coding turned into several week cutting and cleaning up a gigantic php file of >3000 lines, just to get an understanding what was really happening. When I finally submitted my code, the maintainer just threw away my code because because he favoured a slightly different approach of cutting it up. If I wanted my extension included i was welcome to do it all again. When an upgrade to the next stable version broke all my quizzes i gave up.

      I think the problem with moodle/php is that is is rather easy for a non-programmer to change some functionality. But none of these enthousiasts are experienced programmers, and I get the impression that most of the people working at Martin Dougiamas' (the original author) company all have a pedagogy/education background. The end result is that the code will never be clean.
      That will probably not make it any worse than BB or WebCT, a proprietary licence is by no means a guarantee for clean code, esp if you cannot see the code yourself.

      PS: if you want visitors form /. , why don't you make an account here and put the url in your .sig?

      --
      This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
  3. I look forward to.. by SillySnake · · Score: 5, Insightful
    the merging of two terrible web based systems for an even worse web based one.

    Seriously, it's often so hard to find where a professor has put the file you're tyring to find. With so many different places to put things, it just gets students confused. Not to mention all the trouble one has to go to in order to find a specific post, send an e-mail, etc..

    I don't mean to troll, but both systems could stand to see quite a bit of tweaking.

  4. Classroom software is CRUCIAL these days by Work+Account · · Score: 3, Informative

    Having web sites for each class using Blackboard(tm) or WebCT(tm) which are now one and the same thanks to this merger means that students are always able to check out their course website multiple times a day while they're procrasting by browsing websites such as this one (Slashdot) or Fark.

    I have used this software for 5 courses online and it was great for getting the most recent problem sets and scanned in PDFs etc.

    It's just so much easier to have professors use a simple web form to post things rather than worry about building an entirely different course web page for each class they teach.

    Also, it's hush-hush in academia, but professors just aren't good with computers aside from those with MS.

    --

    If you "get" pointers add me as a friend (116)!
  5. Being that its Slashdot and all... by Deslok · · Score: 5, Informative
    Why pay for their service when you can go open source for free?

    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).

  6. Blast from the past ... by TapestryDude · · Score: 3, Informative
    This is interesting to me, because I worked at WebCT before I left to become an independent consultant.

    What's more interesting is that WebCT's Vista was out pacing Blackboard's product in terms of features (at least when I left in October 2003). Blackboard was, I believe, an ASP.NET product, WebCT's Vista is J2EE (and written in Struts and JSP, not Tapestry, alas).

    My guess is that one of the two product lines will be phased out. This could become an interesting competative case for .Net and J2EE.

    Sorry, JEE. Cause Sun can't stand to stick with just one name for anything.

    --
    Howard M. Lewis Ship -- Independent J2EE / Open-Source Java Consultant -- Creator, Apache Tapestry and HiveMind
  7. It all makes sense by hansreiser · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Given how few schools are privately owned, I can see why consolidation might be necessary in the "enterprise software for the education industry" market.

    Or did I miss something?

    1. Re:It all makes sense by R.Mo_Robert · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Maybe my area isn't the norm, but we have a lot more private colleges here (midwest, specifically Iowa) than public ones (or were you thinking only of high schools--do some of them really use these systems?). My school made the switch to Moodle this year after years of using Blackboard--although they *did* come up with their own name for it because they probably couldn't keep a straight face telling their students to go to Moodle (their name is Kaite, spelled with various degrees of capitalization and periods or with a lack thereof, for "Knowledge and Technology in Education" and a play on the fact that this is Luther College and Luther's wife was named Katie).

      Granted, I was never here when they used Blackboard, but I don't think I've heard many complaints about Moodle.

      --
      R.Mo
  8. Less innovation. by davecrusoe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What this will ensure is less innovation in the online schooling front; competition generally drives innovation. Unfortunately, these two packages are so very cumbersome that innovation is unlikely; the pedagogical framework that once strengthened the software(s) is kaput.

    It will be a challenge, but Moodle stands a great chance to out-think the combined WebCT/Blackboard group. What they MUST do effectively is reach out to districts - THIS is where the combined merger will find its force, in its broad reach.
    ~d

  9. Great... by sH4RD · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So when does either company provide technology which can actually scale to user load, is actually powered by modern technology, and generally isn't a Piece of Shit (tm)?

    I've used my fair share of Blackboard, and I've had some great experiences:
    1) The ability to embed Flash and JavaScript into free response questions. 2) The time Blackboard's database started crashing, which caused it to take at least 5 tries to login. 3) And better yet, the 1 in 2 odds that when you finally logged it, it would be as someone else as the database switched your tokens. 4) Best of all, the 1 in 20 odds that person would be a teacher or professor.

    And I've heard WebCT isn't much better...

    --
    WASTE - The Secure P2P
  10. Blackboard doesn't know web standards by sockonafish · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Until just a few months ago when an upgrade was rolled out at my university, the only web browsers officially supported on OS X were Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. Tiger, which had been out for a few months at the time, was not officially supported.

    Blackboard is also a fan of frames, ugliness, and odd behaviors. It's impossible to enroll a system administrator in a course, no matter what. They can only self-enroll.

  11. Re:Yes, but by dgatwood · · Score: 4, Interesting
    My initial thought was "Wow, so two of the worst pieces of software I've ever had the misfortune of dealing with will now be under one roof. Maybe this will spark some competition that's actually worth using."

    Then I realized that if software this bad is the state of the art in the field, it probably means that there's no real money to be made in the field, so no one will bother. *sigh*

    Open Source Opportunity, I suppose.

    --

    Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  12. Re:Yes, but by phlako66 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'd say that this merger is directly in response to an LMS market that is increasingly becoming dominated by excellent Open Source offerings, ie. Moodle and Sakai. There's becoming fewer and fewer reasons to pay the high prices for licensing either of these products, especially as the Open Source ones are so good and getting better and better. The developers community for Moodle for example is phenomenal.

  13. two bad choices by commodoresloat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have some insight on this topic as a university professor. I've used both systems, and I was on the Academic Technology Committee when it was advising the CTO and CIO on purchasing decisions for such systems. We wound up paying for both. As you say, they both suck, and I'm sure whatever unholy combination is produced will suck even worse. At the time - 1999 or 2000 I believe - "open source" was something my colleagues on the committee had heard of but didn't know anything about, and the CTO and CIO were computer-savvy but looked on open source with disdain (this made sense as they were constantly wined and dined by folks who represent closed source companies looking for big deals). I was teaching summers at UCLA at the time and had the opportunity to use ClassWeb, an open source alternative to such tools. My experience with the tool was exemplary; I thought it was easy to use, it fulfilled the necessary functions and was not needlessly confusing for students. It was also free. Best of all, the developer worked at UCLA so when there were features I wanted I was able to ask him for them and they were available in days. It was truly a classic case of the superiority of the open source model working well. For much less the price we paid for Blackboard and CT, which all the students complain about, we could have hired programmers to handle coding issues on classweb and had an open source solution that we could fine tune at will. But when I made the suggestion, the feeling around the table (particularly from the CTO and CIO) was, shut up hippie.... Today I don't use any such tools -- I still code my course web pages by hand using html and have some very primitive open source discussion board technology for discussions. I think it's necessary to have courses online these days for various reasons, but the tools offered by these companies are needlessly ornate and confusing. The open source model makes sense in general but especially in public university settings where costs are a relevant factor and where the freedom to tinker with code brings with it additional educational benefits.

  14. in other news, by moosesocks · · Score: 5, Funny

    In related news, shares of WebCT were down $5 after news of the merger, although this is expected to rise by 20% at the end of the semester after the curve is applied.

    --
    -- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
  15. My problem with Backboard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My principle problem with blackboard isn't usability or UI issues (I agree it stinks but I can tolerate lousy UI). What grinds my gears is that Blackboard is used to EXCLUDE students from online course content! Maybe I'm old fashioned but I thought that the purpose of schools were to educate fools like me. Unless I'm registered for a class, I can't take a look at handouts or problem sets! How are we supposed to "try out" classes at the beginning of the quarter/semester/term? Not all of us can afford to register for 10-15 classes at the beginning of the term.

    As a result, some of us have resorted to posting course materials on "p2p" networks and we are aware that members of the administration are actively looking for us (with the goal of expelling/arresting the perpetrators). Ironic that we have to do this stuff to try to learn.

  16. Why not switch OSS? by failedlogic · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Are you from an institution considering Blackboad or WebCT? Don't. It is the worst software that students and faculty can use. Don't believe me? Read all the other comments on /. and do a Google search.

    I am a university student and several professors have been dilligently trying to upload files using WebCT for the better part of a week and its technical glitch after glitch and the stuff is not being posted up. This is a campus-wide issue. Shame to have wasted our tuition $$$'s on something I and a whole bunch of students rarely use.

    I'm hopeful this with this merger, they decide to use an OSS management system. I could see a problem if the system was just a group of programmers getting together to make one. Since some systems have backing from Berkley and MIT, I would think that the university I attend would have used it.

    I would be more in favor of separate systems. One to run quizzes, one for file transfers (hell there's something called FTP for that), another more secure one for grades (no grades are not on the WebCT thankfully). I can access most course-ountlines from other institutions from the WWW and using google searches and they're not on password protected servers. I don't see why institutions feel they should hide everything from others. A classroom discussion board would have been nice too.

  17. Re:Will Moodle or any OSS LMS scale? by daveb · · Score: 3, Informative

    I'm just someone who uses BB for teaching but trialed Moodle last year unofficially. Hopefully there will be better answers to your queries:

    What's the migration path to the new OSS product?

    BB migration to Moodle - sucks (as far as I could figure). But apparently is getting better

    Will it integrate with the library software, the student portal, the student system and all the other disparate systems on campus?

    Probably - but it will be bespoke (so will integrating the proprietry one). At least you can code it to integrate with your student managment system and anything else. Just try doing that with BB without breaching license.

    How many staff do I need to hire that can provide the love and hugs that an OSS enterprise LMS needs?

    That depends on whether you want them to run the LMS or extend it. The Sys-admin I worked with, who currently maintains the (hugly expensive to licence) Blackboard reckond that the maintenance and running costs of Moodle would be no more than Blackboard. But - if you want to extend the modules to do funky things then yes you will have to pay developers

    Say I need three programmers and a sys-admin, that's ~$400K (cost to employ after super contributions and payroll tax etc.) to install run and keep the software current. Or I can spend ~$150K to pay the license and the sys-admin and stay with WebCT.

    well if you want to pluck numbers out of the air to make sure that the migration won't work - then yeah. Why do you need 3 programmers? I was able to take the course material from BB and put it into Moodle without anyone changing one line of code. I'm not talking import - that's crap - but I was able to do the same or more with Moodle straight out of the box than I was able to do with BB.

    I will have to retrain all the academics and staff that put courses online = 6 months of labor = 6 months opportunity cost. TCO is cheaper with WebCT and I get ~$12million in R&D and access to a vibrant powerlink developer community. I just don't think I can afford free software and if I can I'm not getting the same ROI I get from WebCT.

    yeah yeah more fictitious $. Why did you say 6 months rather than 2 or 18?. Yes training is a very real and expensive issue. But you are talking $150k each and every year to licence Web-CT - isn't it worth figuring out just what the cost really is?

    The LMS is as important as the bricks and mortar buildings.
    Absolutly

    I can't futz about with trying to get some OSS product to work, scale and migrate thousands of courses in an environment that is used 24/7.

    sigh - isn't it sad that we are still hearing "no one got fired for buying IBM" rather than actually being interested in doing a solid investigation of the real issues. If you think that non-OSS is even slightly more workable, scalable and migratable then you have either been lucky or never tried to scale, work with or migrate proprietary systems. Those issues tend to become worse the more they cost ... NOT better

    For my money - Moodle is becoming a pretty decent product - and I do not care that it's OSS. Let me say that again I do not care that it is open source. I want a good LMS that is NOT going to cost my students the earth each and every year.

    However - the issues raised are very very large stumbling blocks. I was able to manually load all of my course material into Moodle which is currently on BB. A migration for an institution cannot be manual. I am also not happy about Moodle's quizes or ability to use resources that are supplied by publishers.

    I'm not using Moodle now solely because of those last two issues. But most of the features that I use daily in Blackboard are available in Moodle. And usually those features are more advanced in Moodle (the discussion board stuff is light years ahead of BB). Our sys-admin also doesn't care whether the stuff he looks after is OSS or not - he just wants it to work without headaches or faculty yelling at him. He much prefered Moodle and was dissapointed that he couldn't migrate the institution