Some prior art is being collected here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_virtual_learning_environments

as well as on the Moodle site.

John

On 2 Aug 2006, at 11:10, Wyatt, Tristram wrote:

>
> From: jetchs [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 02 August 2006 01:09
> To: Sloan Consortium Mailing List
> Subject: [sloan-c] Blackboard Patents the LMS
>
>
>
> Hi everyone,
>
>
>
> Must be a lot of people on vacation or otherwise occupied, because  
> this is truly big news; so like Michael Feldstein, I'm surprised  
> there hasn't been more uproar about this story that Blackboard has  
> received a patent for the LMS  (see also Bb's press release).  Of  
> course, as Stephen Downes reports, there are in fact plenty of  
> people upset about this development, including the fact that Bb has  
> already filed suit against Desire2Learn (in eastern Texas, for some  
> strange reason) and is causing concern "about the future of open  
> source initiatives such as Moodle and Sakai" (according to the  
> Academic Commons website).
>
>
>
> IMO this is a major miscalculation on the part of Blackboard -- if  
> they wanted to become the Microsoft of the LMS world, they will  
> have certainly gained the same level of simmering user resentment;  
> whether they ever attain a comparable market share is more  
> questionable.   Their claims of having invented the LMS are silly  
> enough -- yesterday at lunch, a colleague of mine and I were going  
> through the list of LMS-related products we'd already used or  
> researched before Blackboard (Searchlight, Lotus Notes, FirstClass,  
> TopClass, Web Course in a Box), and of course the list is much  
> larger than that.
>
>
>
> Who it really makes look stupid, however, is the US Patent Office  
> -- whatever could they have been thinking?
>
>
>
> John
>
>
>
> John Sener
>
> Sener Learning Services
>
> www.senerlearning.com
>
> 301-754-0688
>
>
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