The Ed Techie

LAMS podcast

After the LAMS Conference presentation I did an interview with Alan Carrington. This is now available from the LAMS site, if you really don't have anything else to do.

What BB's patent really tells you about them

I gave the keynote at the BB users’ conference yesterday in Durham. As I have blogged before I had some reservations about this. I think it was worthwhile though – I talked about web 2.0 and some of the usual VLE topics I have covered (succession, metaphors, future directions, etc). From a BB audience perspective the key slide was one that focused on the patent where I played the YouTube movie on software patents, gave some of Michael Feldstein’s interpretations of the patent, and linked it back to the succession model. The Blackboard company representatives in the audience looked a little unhappy with this, although slightly battle weary too – I suspect they are getting tired of talking about it. In the questions someone asked me about other patents and I outlined some of their dangers and why I considered them an ‘educational menace’. So, it was a good audience to raise that topic in (in many ways better than preaching to the converted at an open source conference, say). I think it is also another example of why it is such a dumb move on BB’s part. Without the patent I wouldn’t have said anything bad about them, I had a lot of time for them. What the patent does is effectively polarise users, forcing them in to mutually opposing camps. It has made me much more of an advocate of open source for example, and that reaction manifested across many HE institutions will ultimately do a good deal of harm to BB. If I was an investor in BB I would be seriously questioning the wisdom of Michael Chasen, its CEO, in pursuing this strategy.

The theme of the conference was the power of 2.0, and was all about web 2.0 implications. One can’t imagine a less 2.0 approach than BB’s patent (it hardly chimes with the principles of openness, freedom and respect for users does it), so the other thing is demonstrates is a complete lack of understanding about the current technological and social zeitgeist – and would you want to place so much of your institution’s strategy in the hands of a company that is so far from getting it?

LAMS conference

I had submitted a paper to the first LAMS conference in Sydney. However, it clashed with the date of my daughter's school concert, so in an attempt to win a good dad prize I prioritised the concert. They still wanted the paper however, so I came in via Skype with James Dalziel working the powerpoint that end. At 12.15am then last night I was giving a talk while the wind howled outside in Cardiff to an audience immersed in the heat of a Sydney summer. It went quite well (I think) - I should do all my talks like this, sitting in my back room with a cup of tea and a box of biscuits.

The podcast of my talk should be available soon.

Blackboard conference - Cato or Cicero?

I've been invited to give a keynote at the Blackboard user's conference at Durham on December 14th. I accepted, which might stink of hypocrisy, given what I said in a previous post about boycotting any conference sponsored by BB. However, two things persuaded me - one was that it is the user's conference organised by BB users in the UK, and not sponsored by BB, and the second was that I stated I wanted to talk about the patent and open source options, and the organiser was happy for me to do so. He mentioned that many of the BB users were unhappy with the patent too (which is obvious I suppose, but one tends to forget this and think it is sole right of OS or other developers to feel aggrieved by it).

So I felt it would be a good audience to talk to, but I'm still not sure if I didn't just say yes too quickly and not stick to my principles. It's the old debate - are you Cicero (willing to compromise) or Cato (impervious to compromise). The latter is often the most admirable, but of all the great Romans I always preferred Cicero (hey, it's better than having a Caeser complex). I wonder if this is one of those personality traits so beloved of management consultants, we are all either Ciceros or Catos.

The university monopoly and my barcelona talk

Rather late in the day, here is my Powerpoint file from the keynote at Barcelona. I'm putting the file up here as Slideshare struggles with the animation and some slide transitions. Incidentally the animation was created using Pivot - it took me an embarrassingly long time to create something so basic.

The talk went well, afterwards Stephen Downes asked a question about what would happen if universities lost their accreditation monopoly. I suggested the analogy of newspapers (mainly because I was reading Michael Frayn's excellent Towards the End of Morning) and I said it would make higher education a less pleasant place to work in, since the margins become so narrow, but it would probably push innovation. Stephen argued, quite rightly, that while the change in culture for newspapers may have been bad for employees, it has been good for readers (the Guardian online being an excellent example). I didn't answer this particularly well, mainly because it is a big issue with no simple answer.

Sometimes it does feel that because universities do the accreditation, and this is the recognised stamp in society, then there is no need to change For example teaching practices can carry on being the same old lecture because universities have the monopoly. If other bodies performed accreditation, then perhaps it would encourage greater innovation. But universities perform a greater role in society than just accreditation, and perhaps some of the subtler benefits would be swept away in a radical reform (or am I just thinking my life would become less comfortable?).

Anyway, here is the presentation, it contains bits from some previous ones, so probably no big surprises for those I've spoken to recently - Download barcelona_presentation2.ppt 

Running, VLEs, e-learning and democratisation

Warning - this post is a desperate attempt to combine all my interests in one posting.

I took part in my first half-marathon on Sunday (Cardiff, naturally). Like many runners I have come to it relatively late in life (I started last year in earnest). One of the many things I like about running is its very democratic nature. It really is a sport for everyone. All you need is a pair of trainers (in theory that is, I also find an ipod, GPS tracker and hi tech fabrics essential also, so I resemble some form of cyborg, but these are really just luxuries). It encompasses all manner of ability, ages, backgrounds and motivations.

It struck me that this notion of democratisation is something of an underlying theme in my interests, almost by accident. I work at the Open University, the aim of which was to democratise higher education. I was part of the team responsible for the OU course,  T171 You your computer and the Net in 1999, which had around 15,000 students and arguably did a lot to open up understanding of the internet. Next week I am giving a keynote in Barcelona entitled 'VLEs and the democratisation of e-learning', in which I will argue that although VLEs are  not the most exciting or innovative technology around, they have done a lot to democratise e-learning for many academics, in the same way that Microsoft products are often not the best, but the end-result is that they have brought computing to a much wider audience.

However, I think I am guilty of a lazy shorthand here, whereby I drop the word 'democratisation', with the assumption that it is necessarily  a good thing. This is not so - one could view terrorism for example as the democratisation of warfare. Some things are not, or should not, be susceptible to democratisation - talent is a good example. The plethora of reality TV shows (such as X-Factor, Pop Idol, Big Brother etc) can be presented as a democratisation of talent, or celebrity. But they rarely produce anything of quality. Talent, is by its nature, exclusive and undemocratic.

Blackboard - a personal boycott

At the risk of being something of a dog with a bone over this, yesterday I surprised myself - I have some research money to spend and was going to attend a conference. I thought of going to online educa in Berlin. I've  been before, it's an excellent conference, and very good for networking with the European e-learning people. But I noticed that Blackboard was one of the sponsors. My personal view is that the Blackboard patent is anti-competitive, stifles innovation and goes against all that higher education holds dear. So I couldn't, with a clear conscience, go to a conference that was sponsored by them, and by implication endorsed their actions. So, I decided against going, and have sent the conference organisers a message to this effect. In the same way that writers boycotted the Hay Festival when Nestle were sponsors, this seems to me a reasonable response to take.

I had no intention of boycotting the event, and that is what surprised me - when I saw the BB logo on the side, my immediate reaction was one of discomfort. I think it demonstrated to myself the strength of feeling I had about the whole patent thing. Instead I may spend that research money going to the LAMS conference (okay, I confess, being in Sydney is an attraction too).

Is WebCT the best case against Blackboard

I'm not sure I've fully thought this through, and it comes with all the usual caveats about legal ignorance, but here goes....

Could, ironically, WebCT be used as a defence against the Blackboard patent? When Blackboard acquired (or merged with) WebCT they gained a lot of WebCT staff. When they were different companies, their products didn't differ much, and if WebCT was still a separate entity it would be as subject to a law suit as Desire2Learn. So, if I were the Desire2Learn lawyers I would be asking some of the WebCT staff who moved over to Blackboard to testify. For instance, Chris Vento the chief technical officer at WebCT and now Blackboard, is a very smart guy - could he realistically get up and say that when he worked at WebCT they were (knowingly or otherwise) copying Blackboard and not working from more general principles and meeting the demands of their customers? I think this would surely highlight the case for excessive generality in their patent.

Blackboard - a dangerous friend

Continuing on the Blackboard patent front...

I have to say it strikes me as a commercially dumb move. I’ve had dealings with people at Blackboard and WebCT and always found them to be a smart bunch. They have often pitched the idea that they are partners. The patent is such an antagonistic act however, that any such notion of being a strategic partner must seem dubious. If I worked at an institution that ran one of their products and it was coming up for review, the patent would be a major factor in going elsewhere, for a number of reasons:

1. It might prevent any additions or innovation I wanted to implement on my campus without finding myself either handing these over, or in court, or having to pay BB to use tools I had invented.
2. It shows a lack of understanding, or at least a lack of concern, with the values of higher education that make partnering difficult to sustain.
3. It has a whiff of desperation about it that is never reassuring to detect in a strategic and central supplier.

I remember when I was a teenager, this chap hung around with us who was a bit rough, and had been in trouble. He seemed a reformed character though and we liked having him around. However, one Saturday night after a few drinks a situation escalated and he ended up being carted off by the police. The patent kind of reminds me of this – when the going gets tough they revert to the behaviour they know best – aggression.

At a recent IMS discussion Blackboard did stress that they would not go after open source products, and I doubt they would be successful if they did. Indeed the patent is unlikely to be successful in Europe where software patents are generally frowned upon (copyright is considered a good enough protection I understand), and maybe in the US too. The issue of prior exposure would seem on any logical grounds to rule out most of the patent, since these are such general ideas that most of us could find examples of prior exposure. However, I'm not a lawyer and my understanding of patents is not great, although I do know a thing or two about VLEs, and any suggestion that Blackboard invented the concept is ridiculous. The trouble is lawyers and software don’t make a good mix, so anything might happen. My point, regardless of whether it is actually successful or not, its presence is enough to raise mistrust. If you were part of a project on standards or interoperability, you would be very unlikely to have Blackboard as a partner.

Succession and _that_ Blackboard patent

I’ve been watching the Blackboard patent debate with interest. Initially I felt it might be one of those things that people panic about, but doesn’t turn out to be the higher education apocalypse everyone predicted. While this may still turn out to be the case, it is undoubtedly serious. Michael Feldstein has blogged extensively about it and provides a good translation of the patent, which makes it even scarier. Some of these  (e.g. An instructor can create and edit pages in a course space) seem so general as to be ludicrous, like patenting the concept of a wheel (and indeed being excessively general is one area where the patent may fail).

In terms of the succession model I have outlined elsewhere, I have argued that commercial VLEs have been, on the whole, good for e-learning. Because they match current classroom practice closely they have been easily adopted. Their presence has changed the nature of the environment however, and now many people are looking for more flexibility, and institutions feel they have gained sufficient knowledge to implement open source options. In short, they have been victims of their own success. I guess it was predictable then that a commercial organisation wasn’t just going to lie down and accept this. The patent is the equivalent of napalming the burgeoning plant succession and locking down the environment.