One of the bigger educational tech stories of the past couple weeks (IMHO) is Blackboard’s attempt to patent the LMS. I am making the effort to attempt to remember what I wrote about this issue because I want to have these comments and links for future reference. There is a local connection in this topic for me. A group at my institution (UND) has been developing a commercial LMS (HTMLeZ) and this group like larger players (e.g., desire2learn) and open projects (moodle) now must wait to see how this plays out.
What makes the approval of a patent of this nature scary is that it covers so much ground and this space has already been populated by many companies offering similar products. It is unclear what if anything will be demanded of these other companies and how the general nature of the patent language will influence future developments in this area. It seems to me that attempting to claim a patent on a product that has already been made available by many companies and can be associated with existing categories of sofware (ILSs) is a high stakes move (note Blackboard acquired WebCT recently). Dominating this space would be very lucrative. However, there will be a backlash because of the many existing products and concern for continued efficient advances in products of this type. If the patent is interpreted in a way that allows for continued competition, the Blackboard name will likely be tarnished because of the claims the company has made.
“The present invention relates generally to systems and methods for the exchange of information between instructors and students in an educational context. More specifically, the present invention relates to systems and methods in which an educational instructor interacts with one or more non-collocated students by transmitting course lectures, textbooks, literature, and other course materials, receiving student questions and input, and conducting participatory class discussions using an electronic network such as the Internet and World Wide Web. The present invention also relates to the provision of an infrastructure that allows for on-line registration and tuition payment of educational courses.”
etc.
Blog post from elearning2.0 sharing the diagrams from the patent request.
