A busy day in RSS-Land. These just flew across my Google Reader account. Apparently the US Patent & Trademark Office (USP&TO) has issued a preliminary finding that rejects all 44 of Blackboard’s patent claims. According to both Desire2Learn and Blackboard, this is just the first step in a lengthy review process but it is interesting for those of us who have been following this saga. Desire2Learn has made a PDF copy of this finding available on their website here.
From Desire2Learn:
On March 25, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office issued its Non-Final Action on the re-examination of the Blackboard Patent. We are studying the document, found here, but in short, the PTO has rejected all 44 of Blackboard’s claims. We caution that this is a NON-final action; both Blackboard and Desire2Learn will have an opportunity to comment before a final action will issue, and after that, the decision will be subject to appeals.However, we’re still pleased.
Today, the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued a first Office Action in the reexamination proceeding regarding Blackboard’s U.S. Patent 6,988,138 (”the ‘138 Patent”). This Office Action was expected and is the first step in a reexamination process that often takes years to complete. It has no effect on the validity of the patent, the lawsuit between Blackboard and Desire2Learn or the pending injunction against Desire2Learn.
We remain very confident in the strength of our patent and have provided more information about today’s announcement should you have questions. Please see www.blackboard.com/patent for more information.
Updated to include August through December 2007 releases
Educause has a series that highlights specific current technologies and boils them down into a mini-sheet that tech coordinators and advocates can use on their own campus. Unlike some of the Educause resources which require membership, this series is open to the general public which means that K-12 folks can access them as well. New brief sheets have followed a monthly publishing schedule with the latest being the Twitter brief posted just this month.
The series can be found here, but the individual links of papers (in PDF format) posted as of 19 July 2007 are listed below. I find looking at the timeline of releases interesting from an anthropological perspective as it illustrates where the edtech interest was focused over the past two years that these briefs have been published.
Announced at the corporate keynote at BbWorld07, SafeAssign is a plagiarism prevention service integrated with the LMS that attempt to uncover and/or deter plagiarism while educating the campus community about what plagiarism is. Leveraging a dedicated assignment tool, assignments are uploaded to a central service which compares the submission against their databases and other submitted works held in the Global Reference Database. Any institution running any of the newer Blackboard Learning Systems is eligible to download and install the PowerLink/Building Block for their campus free of charge. Future platform deliveries will have this service embedded and will not require separate installation.
SafeAssign checks submitted papers (Word, RTF, PDF, TXT, HTML and ZIP packages of these) against the Internet using Windows Live Search technology. Blackboard has partnered with ProQuest ABI/Inform and searches against their 2.5 million articles database. SafeAssign also checks against a local institutional database of locally submitted work, as well as a Global Reference Database which is comprised of submissions volunteered by students from SafeAssign campuses. Obviously this database is expected to grow over time as the SafeAssign system is adopted by Blackboard institutions. It is important to note that the Global Reference Database is an opt-in service that students may elect to take advantage of in order to protect their own work.
Beyond the course integration aspect, SafeAssign also boasts a Direct Submit feature that allows faculty (not students as of the current release) to check documents on a “one-off” basis if they receive work that triggers their “spidey-sense.”
Gradebook integration is not yet available for CE/Vista campuses meaning that after the creation of the assignment, the faculty member will also need to create a new grading column in order to provide a grade value. It is expected that a patch will be issued that will provide this service in the coming months.
General Counsel Matthew Small noted that this new service will in no way affect the PowerLink or Building Block servicing TurnItIn, and the general flavor is that TurnItIn is still considered a strong corporate partner. Greg Ritter pointed out that those institutions currently employing TurnItIn may be loath to move away and abandon the student submissions collected through their use of the TurnItIn service.
Today’s keynote had a couple of huge announcements, one of which may have an incredible impact on one of their partner vendors, TurnItIn.
CIO Michael Chasen announced that starting today all of the Blackboard Learning Systems: Blackboard, CE and Vista are able to download and install via either Building Blocks or PowerLinks, a new anti-plagiarism tool, SafeAssign. The tool can act either stand-alone locally or, like TurnItIn, it can upload student work to a centralized database that will then “protect” a student’s intellectual property from inappropriate use by other user’s of SafeAssign. There were a couple of interesting features such as a direction citation tool that identifies the specific resource that appears to have been used and the ability to allow students to “opt in” to the service (which I believe can be turned off administratively thereby effectively mandating use of the service). I wonder what kind of financial impact this will have on TurnItIn when Blackboard institutions learn that they can save the tens of thousands of dollars they spend on their annual subscription costs?
In other news, Chasen also announced the availability of a new tool intended to bridge the three learning environments. Available with the licensing of one of their three systems: Community, Content or Outcomes, is their Learning Environment Connector. Although a QA tech I was speaking with thought it was already available, I haven’t been able to find it on their site to link to as of yet. The idea is that schools will be able to bridge users to other Bb LMSes, as well as to the three Systems. This is big news as it is the first sign that the company is working to bring the formerly disparate environments together. In our own university system in New Hampshire, it means that Plymouth State which employs the Campus Edition version of the LMS may well be able to leverage the community and content systems that both UNH and Granite State College were only able to access as they were Blackboard sites. Rather than worry about the differences in our LMS, we can now focus on developing points of collaboration and tangency for our respective and some times cross-pollinating student bodies.
I’m down in Boston, Mass. and today was day one of Blackboard’s user conference. Steven Leavitt of Freakonomics fame gave the opening keynote and did an admirable job. My takeaway points:
Incentives matter - For both good and bad. Leavitt opines that anything worth winning is worth cheating for. My take, if you make the prize too valuable, people will often cheat to obtain it (he sites the example of tax returns prior to the requirement to include your dependents SSNs and the overnight “disappearance” of over 7 million children that tax year). But also, folks like to feel like they are valued and therefore it is important to ensure that the incentive is relative to the task.
One small idea can tip the balance - In the example above, a single IRS employee made the suggestion twice over a period of years. His suggestion, once acted upon, has meant an over 30 billion dollar increase in revenue. You never know when your one simple suggestion could have such an enormous impact, so act!
Education is ripe for a revolution - We’re still trying to teach the same way we did 40 years ago. The corporate world has evolved, why hasn’t education? By the way, Leavitt also mentioned that the idea of tenure in the world of higher education has to go because it no longer serves it’s original purpose and now simply ensures that mediocrity is rewarded. I’m sure that will stir the pot with educators but perhaps he has a point.
I just finished listening to Tapscott’s Wikinomics, perhaps I should now add Leavitt’s Freakonomics to my list.
I was listening to an Educause podcast from the Educause Learning Initiative or ELI2007 conference which was a recording of Carl Berger’s, The Millennial Instructor presentation. In it he used a phrase that hits the nail on the head when it comes to providing tech support or edtech training in today’s world.
WINWINI or What I Need, When I Need It
I like the Win-Win fit and the extra “I” at the end points out the personal touch.
I’ve always had a problem with the term “Just In Time” training because it always seemed to give the impression that no prior thought had gone into the process beforehand. WINWINI on the other hand speaks to the growing trend of on-demand service. On-demand training, on-demand learning, on-demand entertainment - where the focus is on the individual. It is not to say that it is a selfish perspective rather one that acknowledges that in today’s fast paced and multi-channeled society, expectations on us are evolving and our support needs and personal expectations are following suit. The ability to get what you need when you need it - by knowing where to turn or who to turn to will become an increasingly valuable skill.
This post was written in and posted from Word 2007. The latest version of Word allows you to post to a number of popular blog engines with some limitations. I didn’t have any problem connecting to my blog, but I wish that the ability to upload files to my Flickr account was built in to the interface. I’ve attached a quick image to see if Word 2007 can post to the blog I host.
UPDATE: Worked pretty slick. Thanks to Weblog Tools Collection for bringing this to my attention. For those who would like a tutorial, check this link.
This has been blogged to death but since I’ve been referencing it in a number of workshops it just made sense to have it here on my site.
Michael Wesch, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Kansas State University, has created this 5-minute warp speed video that shows us the evolution of the web, but also how it has shaped and been shaped by evolutions in the types and social nature of various online applications. It seems to me that this movie could be just the tip of the iceberg and that it would be a great foundation or even a springboard for a larger study of how we are shaped by our technology and in turn serve to shape technology. The cyclical relationship between man and machine. Hmmm…
Anyway, enjoy…
[tags]ethnography, machine, video, web2.0, wesch, youtube, video [/tags]
This came in from our state EdTech listserv, and I thought I would share it for those who are interested in advocating for the restoration of EETT funding:
The Administration recently released its proposed FY08 Budget which calls for the total elimination of critical education technology funding. Specifically, the Administration’s Proposed FY08 Budget would zero out the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program. Combined, the proposed FY08 budget cuts education technology by $290 million alone.
Before the House and Senate put forth their budget proposals, send a letter to your congressional representatives asking them to save EETT. CLICK HERE to enter your zip code and send a letter with this important message.
These proposed cuts come at the same time that the Administration and Congress are concerned that America’s students lack sufficient academic background in math and science, imperiling their personal and the nation’s competitiveness in the global economy. Denying education technology knowledge and tools to America’s k12 students and teachers not only does not advance that agenda, but undermines it.
With the House and the Senate working on a budget resolution over the next five weeks, now is the time for members of Congress to hear from you that education technology funding must be restored. Now is the time to make your voice heard in support of the EETT program.
CLICK HERE to enter your zip code to send your letter to the House and Senate asking to save EETT and to fund it at $700 million.
Every letter generated during this crucial time will make a difference. Even if you already took action a few months ago, please send another letter and spread the word to your friends, family and coworkers. Your voice matters!
Tell Congress to KEEP AMERICA COMPETITIVE and save funding for EETT!
ETAN updates are brought to you by the Consortium for School Networking and the International Society for Technology in Education
Hot off the blog presses it appears that Google has finally gone official with their commercial release of Google Apps. I’m quite happy that they have included Docs & Spreadsheets and Shared Calendaring which I thought was an obvious omission when they first rolled the suite out. They’ve also embedded API and tech support for their paid service.
At first glance, it seems reasonably priced at $50/year, but upon further review the pricing structure is $50 per user per year. So rather than attract an audience in the small business, non-profit organization and small school higher ed markets, the pricing structure may only be appealing to larger organizations such as Disney’s Pixar. You can compare the feature sets between their Standard and Premier editions although the difference seems to primarily revolve around email storage capacity, service continuity and support, and the ability to integrate APIs and third-party apps. Incredibly, Docs and Spreadsheets is included in the Standard feature set so if you don’t require advanced integration points and don’t mind ads, don’t bother with the Premier at least until they roll out more features.
I’m still waiting/hoping/expecting integration with their Google Groups feature in order to support a small team approach to project management.
@mtnlaurel: Great-now I feel like I'm channeling SNL's The Church Lady "Well doesn't that make our naughty parts tingle!" Sorry bout the Dew 5 days ago
@elle6503: Yeah, @chrislehmann is introducing his kidz to the finer points of the 80's. Couldn't resist! 5 days ago
@sharongs: I assume the lock-down wasn't part of the presentation? Talk about a big finish! 5 days ago
