E-Learning 2.0

Blackboard and WebCT's merger

One of the better things to come from the recent Blackboard World 2006 was a sense of the roadmap for Blackboard's acquisition of WebCT.

A big concern for me (and for many BB users, I'm sure) was whether the attempt to merge the two products would lead to a period of developmental stagnation for both products, and weakened support for BB. WebCT users, no doubt, were even more concerned that they'd see the plug pulled on the product they'd chosen.

As noted on the BB site, BB seems to have a good, forward-thinking plan. They plan, as previously stated, to continue with both products, but their goal is to expand the APIs to allow Building Blocks (the Blackboard open-standards plugin) and Powerlinks (the WebCT plugin) to eventually use the same standard, allowing simultaneous third-party development. Likewise, they intend to release new features for both platforms, eventually leading to the platforms slowly converging over a long period of time. If they can pull it off, it's a great idea. It allows users of both environments to continue to enjoy the features they like, it ensures that neither WebCT nor Blackboard users have to worry about a major change management project to shift e-learning environments, and it allows developers on either platform an opportunity to work with both products.

Obviously, it's too early to judge the results, but as far as their publicly-stated intentions go, Blackboard has gotten off to a good start here.