To be honest with you, I hate picking on Blackboard. I really do. They just make it so easy. Campus Technology published an interview with Blackboard’s Chief Legal Officer Matthew Small. I’ll just quote the article – no need to embellish what was said – it’s funny enough.
I nearly fell over laughing on this one. I’m from Texas, and this jurisdiction was East Texas. Texans hate to be called “sophisticated” in general (to us, it’s better to be a “good ‘ole boy”). I don’t know if they realize that they actually might have insulted the people they were trying to compliment. But, in all seriousness, this one smacks of propaganda. I guess there is just no nice way to say “this was in a rocket-docket jurisdiction that hears a lot of patent cases and always finds in favors of patent holders regardless of prior art.” Blackboard, if you want us to go for this, try filing in a jurisdiction that finds closer to 50-50 on these cases.
The same old tired line from Blackboard – we are too stupid to understand something like patent law. I get tired of shooting this one down, because it is just plain insulting. Patent law is not hard to understand. Get over it. You can’t come up with a good counter argument for most “commentators,” so you resort to blowing smoke. And what does the first patent thing have to do with anything? If that means anything, then why are you trying to patent something that was the first thing you created in 1998? If being the first at something means that you don’t know what you are talking about, then what does that mean about you patenting being the first CMS to have multiple roles for a single user? Hmmmm…..
What is sad is that many CMS companies have pointed out that they did have this back even in 1995. It’s even sadder that Blackboard thinks that there is this huge wall of separation between online education and the rest of the online world. For at least a decade prior to 1998, bulletin boards had the ability to allow a single user with a single logon and a single user account to have multiple roles across multiple boards. It would be comparable for someone to come along and patent the concept of a blog in CMS because they were the first to stick one in their software. The course management system did not grow up in a vacuum separated from the rest of the online world.
This one makes me sick. I remember discussing this exact issue in an education class while working on my Bachelor’s degree. And I graduated in 1997. Sigh……
Matt is currently an Instructional Designer II at Orbis Education and a Part-Time Instructor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Previously he worked as a Learning Innovation Researcher with the UT Arlington LINK Research Lab. His work focuses on learning theory, Heutagogy, and learner agency. Matt holds a Ph.D. in Learning Technologies from the University of North Texas, a Master of Education in Educational Technology from UT Brownsville, and a Bachelors of Science in Education from Baylor University. His research interests include instructional design, learning pathways, sociocultural theory, heutagogy, virtual reality, and open networked learning. He has a background in instructional design and teaching at both the secondary and university levels and has been an active blogger and conference presenter. He also enjoys networking and collaborative efforts involving faculty, students, administration, and anyone involved in the education process.