Blackboard losing clients

[Exfactor]

District-based Blackboard helped launch the education-technology industry in the mid-1990s. By the early 2000s, its software connected students and professors with textbooks, course materials and each other at nearly every college in the country. Its stock peaked in 2007, at $49, more than triple its opening price on the Nasdaq in 2005.

Today, after 20 years of innovation, the once red-hot industry is at a crossroads as growth slows and a handful of companies vie to unseat Blackboard and grab market share.

In 2006, Blackboard held as much as 90 percent of the learning management system market share, according to industry reports. Now Blackboard’s market share has dwindled to 44 percent.

Blackboard, founded by American University graduates and an early darling of the District’s high-tech start-up community, has recently lost some high-profile university clients after students and faculty complained that its interface can be clunky and inconvenient.

Over time, Blackboard piled on new features to its core platform, but they were not always well integrated, which made students bounce around among different online programs to complete simple tasks.

Competitors emerged with more of-the-moment cloud computing features better suited for ease of use and mobile access.

This month, the University of Texas at Austin will move its online content from Blackboard to Canvas, a program made by ed-tech competitor Instructure. Duke switched from Blackboard to Sakai in 2011. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill started a Sakai pilot program in 2008 and jumped ship from Blackboard in 2014.

Read more here: Blackboard loses high-profile clients as its rivals school it in innovation - The Washington Post

I know some members here have stated how much they disliked Blackboard in the past; personally I had no problem with it, as I always found it easy to use. Starting this fall my university will shut down Blackboard completely; for those who take courses online they will be able to find their online classrooms on iTunesU (iPad), where livetext will be used to upload assignments. Earlier this year the president of Excelsior made mention that they are also in the stages of preparing to leave Blackboard also. For those of you who are currently enrolled do your school still use Blackboard?

[SuzanneD]

My B&M school uses blackboard. The title of that Washington Post article is awkward sounding.

[futuremrsmlb]

Read more here: Blackboard loses high-profile clients as its rivals school it in innovation - The Washington Post

I know some members here have stated how much they disliked Blackboard in the past; personally I had no problem with it, as I always found it easy to use. Starting this fall my university will shut down Blackboard completely; for those who take courses online they will be able to find their online classrooms on iTunesU (iPad), where livetext will be used to upload assignments. Earlier this year the president of Excelsior made mention that they are also in the stages of preparing to leave Blackboard also. For those of you who are currently enrolled do your school still use Blackboard?

I think there is some validity to the article. I recently took an online course at a community college that recently switched from Blackboard to Moodle.

[LaterBloomer]

I'm taking 3 distance learning courses this semester at 2 community colleges. One course has already started, and I'm having a bear with the whole Blackboard thing. (I hadn't realized it was NOT an asynchronous course.) I've used Canvas before, but it was an asynchronous course and I didn't have any problems. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the next two courses at a different college that also uses Blackboard will go better.

[dfrecore]

I just finished an online course through my CC using Blackboard. I found it to be clunky and non-intuitive, and couldn't figure out how to get from one place to another easily, and at times even logging out and then back in. Couldn't for the life of me figure out who thought their interface was a good idea.

Like the discussion board: I would go in, and I could see how many new posts there were, but as soon as I went into a post and scrolled down even a little bit to read, it would mark the entire thing as having been read. So I could never just see the posts that were new so I could try to respond to those. I had to read through all of them all the time, including the replies, to try to figure out which ones I wanted to reply to. Super annoying and unhelpful.

On the other hand, it wasn't the worst website I've ever used, and I managed to figure out most things after a couple of weeks. It wasn't simple or intuitive, but I managed. Although if that's the best I can say about it, that's not great. "It wasn't the worst website I've ever used" is NOT a good tag line for your product!

[Exfactor]

Just had my first week of classes without using Blackboard, and I can honestly say I don't miss it at all. I received my iPad from my university, which came installed with iTunesU and many other apps from my school, such as apps to access my grades, student account, library ect. However, using iTunesU instead of Blackboard has been a pleasant experience. It also seems as though the students in the class are more active on the discussion boards than with Blackboard. Having all your assignments show up in the calendar, which notifies you ahead of time, and on the due date that an assignment is due, along with notifying you when a student or professor post to the discussion boards is awesome, and then having access to your books in the ibook app totally makes things more easier. It really makes you wonder why many more schools are taking their time to transition to the mobile platforms in offering their students education.