I was in a foul mood the other day when I posted the open source robbery article and totally accept the view that it was, to put it mildly, pretty hostile and not particularly constructive… will try to be moreso this time and explain a bit of my gut reaction.
I think that what Michael has to say about the subject is spot on (as is his funky ‘more’ link, how do ya do that??)… we do need powerful, robust and more-than-likely well supported administrative systems for big institutions and it does seem that if WebCT / Blackboard etc. are good at anything then this is probably it. Am not sure about the operating system though… think we’re taking an evil MS metaphor a bit too far there.
What Scott says is also totally valid, there is definitely a move towards interoperability here, well, at least towards a ’semblance’ of interoperability, but I guess that my concern is that there’s a lot of lip-service there and that really these companies don’t want to, don’t intend to and aren’t really up for becoming interoperable in any sense.
And in that sense I quote the WebCT rep who commented on that post (good on him for doing so BTW… I’m impressed) who said:
“…Our customers can also use the SDK to integrate with either their homegrown applications or potentially open source applications that may be used on campus.
We have created a site called the Vista DevNet, where licensed customers have access to resources, forums, how-tos, etc. all related to the use of the SDK. A key component of DevNet is a contributions area where institutions can share the code that they have developed, so that others can either use it or build upon it.
We are not integrating open source applications into WebCT - for example, the phpWiki integration allows instructors to easily link from Vista to the wiki application and provides some workflow aids. The two products still run on their respective servers, and no phpWiki code is incorporated into Vista….”
[To which I might ask, what exactly is the 'WebCT Wiki Integration Toolkit 0.1' then, just out of interest? Can I hack phpwiki to fit my needs in this context? What's the difference between an independent phpWiki installation and this? How much are you selling it for? And are you offering the authentication / workflow systems in an open sense so I can, for example, integrate them with Elgg, or WordPress or any other tools I choose?]
Here are my issues:
These companies are in a very competitive and very rewarding market. They have big investors or are publicly listed and, let’s face it, are responsible to make as much as they can.
They also have a stranglehold over this market, moreorless… especially in Australia. And they don’t want to lose it. This is based largely in them providing the ‘One Solution’ product and tying it in with other tools which they have lucrative commercial relationships with. They will do anything to maintain this model and their ‘duopoly’. They’re compelled to by the market.
I, however, don’t believe that education should be so much for sale (that there should be so much money able to be made out of it) or that it is in education’s interest to have such dominating market leaders. Also, I am absolutely committed to the vision of online education becoming a sustainable and multi-faceted environment, as affordable and accessible so that any teacher can use it and as varied and subvertable as any classroom or progressive curriculum.
And to me the appropriation of the tools that will help us achieve this by the WebCTs of this world through stuff like the ‘WebCT Wiki Integration Toolkit 0.1′ is bad news. It’s the same approach that gets people to shop at K-Mart for everything even though they can get a much greater range, quality and price just down the road… and they are not doing it out of a philanthropic to help us teach and learn online better. They’re doing it to lock in the $s.
Granted it’s open source, they can do pretty much what they want with it, that’s their right. But it makes my stomach turn to think of what could be and what might be if this ‘integration’ concept picks up like Scott and others are observing.
You know how to stir the pot ;-)
An interesting discussion which I am not sure has a single correct answer. From an educational institution point of view an Open Source LMS might work, however many corporate learning environments are based around major brand name LMS tools (Saba, Oracle, Click2Learn etc) and most have not been the greatest of success. Further many corporate environments are still against the introduction of major Open Source applications (which an LMS is) therefore most of us will only get these newer tools through integration as described by WebCT where we can sneek these great open source components into the enterprise.
Me, never!
Good point though… I think that there’s a significant difference between the corporate (for whom elearning is a add on) and education (for whom it’s bread and butter)… as well as $ resources (forgot to mentuion that one)
I think it’ll probably take a recession to introduce OS there. We’ve already got our funding crisis!
Hello James,
It’s interesting to see the WebCT Wiki Integration Toolkit 0.1 causing such a stir. As the person who created said Toolkit, I thought I might be able to answer some of your questions. (Although I’m guessing the intent was more rhetorical than anything else, they’re valid questions nonetheless.)
…
“To which I might ask, what exactly is the ‘WebCT Wiki Integration Toolkit 0.1′ then, just out of interest?”
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It’s a couple pieces of code that allow WebCT users to access a PhpWiki instance from within WebCT. Some extra PHP code (all documented in the toolkit) connects to WebCT to authenticate users when they try to access or modify a Wiki page. The idea being that, while Wikis were designed to be open to the world, a school might prefer to not be so open. The toolkit provides the option to make the Wiki entirely closed (read/write permission only available to users logged in to WebCT) or read-only outside the institution.
“Can I hack phpwiki to fit my needs in this context?”
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Yes. It’s pretty much the same PhpWiki . In fact, you still need to download the PhpWiki distribution in order to use the toolkit. WebCT isn’t assimilating open source, just integrating with it :-)
“What’s the difference between an independent phpWiki installation and this?”
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It’s the same PhpWiki you download from http://www.phpwiki.org (sourceforge actually). The integration toolkit includes some extra files to drop into a subdirectory of the PhpWiki install directory and one line of code to add (no wait, four lines, but three of them are comments).
“How much are you selling it for?”
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All PowerLinks contributions on the WebCT Developers Network web site, including the Wiki toolkit, can be downloaded for free.
“And are you offering the authentication / workflow systems in an open sense so I can, for example, integrate them with Elgg, or WordPress or any other tools I choose?”
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I see no reason why you couldn’t integrate it with whatever other tools you want. That’s the whole raison d’être of PowerLinks: to provide WebCT customers with the ability to integrate with external applications, be they open source or proprietary. I developed PhpWiki because many WebCT customers have expressed interest in integration with Wikis. I submitted the toolkit to the Developers Network website so other WebCT customers could use it and hopefully improve on it.
Cheers,
Paul
Hi James,
You’re right. Its something I’ve been struggling with ever since I had my first run in with an LMS. (When we first met when I was a student back on 2001)
While LMS may have (or not) filled the ICT literacy gap many users had in the past, that gap almost isn’t there anymore. (Whether or not LMS solved that gap or just misdirected staff development funds is another question)
But, more recently, through a combination of teacher skills getting better and various free/webbased/and OSS options getting easier to use, the LMS model is almost redundent.
Finally teachers and learners have an opportunity to use the Internet raw, and to engage with the network with free and easy tools for publishing and communicating.
The LMS offering interoperability may give many the excuse they need to avoid this engagement and ’stick with what they know’.
Maybe LMS’s will evolve far beyond what we currently know them to be. If so, I hope it is something like what I wish for…
Thanks for posting this and offering the opportunity to comment. I’ve supported your point in a recent post to my own blog.
Regards
Leigh Blackall
This debate is never going to go away - and why should it? As Michael says, there isn’t a single correct answer. Our LMS (or VLE to us Brits) has 1200 course areas on it. That fact is one thing that locks us into the provider we use, until IMS really means transferable courses. But the other fact is that we can run these course areas with one part-time system administrator. We couldn’t do everything we want to do with any of the current OSS offerings and our current staffing levels. Yes, the annual licence is expensive - but so are staffing commitments which would enable us to run Moodle with the same level of features and scaleability. So for the moment, we will stay with what we know - but being able to plug-in or link to OSS tools such as the Wiki toolkit or ePortfolio, or non-OSS tools such as Respondus or CourseGenieis very important because it keeps some flexibility in our provision.
The Wal-Mart analogy is a good one, because the convenience factor is an important one in making purchasing decisions. It doesn’t have to be the only one, and you might choose to shop elsewhere for ethical reasons, for instance. If everyone did that, Wal-Mart would soon change its policies, but they’d still be looking to keep market share by making it easier if not cheaper to buy those ethical products.
hmmmm….what have you got to say about my institution’s site licensing of Microsoft products, when there are perfectly good OSS alternatives?
Hmmm.. appears I’m having trouble pinging myself :o) Here’s teh next in the series: http://incsub.org/blog/?p=511
Thanks for teh comments!
I apologize, but I will have to be anon for obvious reasons…
I cannot say about everyone in this market, but I work for one of the largest eLearning vendors, and we are not public, nor do we get paid a lot of money. I literally make 1/2 of what I could in another sales position. However like you, and like most of the people I work with here, we feel there is a greater calling than just making money, and are happy to be here. Where I work, there are many educators in the sales team, consulting team and management. A number of us still teach!
Also, do not confuse us with the Oracles and the Microsofts. I used to work at a large supply chain company, where management discussion were mostly about yacht sizes. Here, discussions are usually about education (or political activism).
Yes, there is a profit focus — but profit is a measure of success, and without such measure, then where does that leave you?
It’s ‘a’ measure.
That was the problem with BB floating… now, it’s the only measure.
I don’t know about WebCT ownership but would certainly like to!