Everyone has an opinion on the Blackboard move into Open Source… so do I.

This post was originally an email to the Educause CIO listserv, in response to Ethan Benatan, Vice President for IT & Chief Information Officet at Marylhurst University, specifically questions about the impact of various licensing options: I expanded the discussion.

The “Ultimate” Benefits of Open Source List

Frequently I catch presentations on the benefits of open source software, or even other open initiatives like open educational resources, open courseware, open access, open etc. Usually, the greatest benefit in the adoption of open source software cited by the presenter (especially when talking about applications within higher education) is related to cost savings realized by the lack of licensing fees. Little, however, is ever mentioned about the actual development methodology openness enables (as opposed to distribution) and the benefits such an approach has on the final software project.

Agile Adoption in Higher Ed IT (one measure)

For some time I have been advancing Agile methods, specifically within Higher Education’s Information Technology offices. Beginning in 2012 I began weekly queries of Higher Ed Jobs (www.higheredjobs.com) to identify IT specific jobs which include “Agile” or “Scrum” within their job descriptions. These are then compared to all IT specific jobs posted to the job search site. In order to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the IT industry’s adoption of Agile methods, I added Dice (www.dice.com) in the second week and Indeed (www.indeed.com) in the third.

Openness Is More Productive

I just found this post on CIO Insight, Workplace Technology: Employees Take Charge.

What I find interesting is, that if one replaces the references to companies with references to campuses and online learning, I still sorta agree…

Remember the days when a CIO could simply dash off a memo to the entire [campus or system]  and say, “We are buying [some academic technology] for everybody and that is that …”? Well, that era may be coming to an end, according to research from IDG Research Services and RSA, which is the security division of EMC. Today, [student, faculty and campus] users of [online teaching and learning technology] have a great degree of influence on which [LMS's, CMS's, e-Portfolios, discussion forums, grade books, social bookmarking, graphics annotation, blogs, wiki's] and other [academic technology] tools are used [in their courses]. And – even though [university systems and campuses] hardly encourage the practice – many [students, faculty and staff] use personal gadgets to tap into enterprise networks, email and [academic] applications. This practice presents considerable security issues, as the research shows breaches being reported by large enterprises. The general consensus appears to be “If we can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” In fact, CIOs and other IT managers concede that these trends are actually improving workplace productivity. The survey was commissioned from IDG Research Services by RSA. The report featured responses from nearly 40 CIOs and security/IT managers surveyed. Two thirds of those surveyed say that tools such as netbooks, tablets, smart phones and social media increase workplace productivity. More than one quarter of respondents say their company allows employees to use their own PCs/mobile devices for work.

While it is true that colleges and universities have a long tradition of committees to help in organizational governance and decision-making, I think this article points to the emergence of more informal, organic and collaborative processes in defining direction, or what I would label as openness.*

Considering this trend toward distributed decision-making, it will become imperative for organizations (including colleges and universities) to find methods to identify the growing interests in technologies and services among their staff and user-base. Interestingly, in my mind, the same research offers a viable approach: “More than 80 percent of companies now allow some form of access to social-network sites,” and; “Among companies that do allow access to social-network sites, 62 percent use these tools for external communications with customers, partners.” This “openness” say 63 percent of the CIOs, IT managers and security professionals surveyed, increases productivity.

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* Openness is a very general philosophical position from which some individuals and organizations operate, often highlighted by a decision-making process recognizing communal management by distributed stakeholders (users/producers/contributors) rather than a centralized authority (owners, experts, boards of directors, etc.).

“Caught between the Scylla and Charibdes”

I just got back from a whirl-wind tour of higher education conferences: SUNY CIT, Jasig, NERCOMP Annual Conference, BbWorld, MoodleMoot Austin and the 2-3-98 Conference. At each of these events, business continuity was a significant theme both formally in the sessions offered, and casually, in-between presentations and around the tables during breakfast, lunch and dinner. Considering the continuing consolidation of technology providers and systems  affecting academic technology, SUN and Oracle, Blackboard and Angel, etc. and the havoc (real and imagined)  those merges and acquisitions cause on campuses, among faculty, staff and students and within IT shops, it’s understandable that this would be on the minds and lips of conference attendees. One debate that I keep hearing is specific to the LMS market: can Blackboard buy an open source project like Moodle or Sakai. And building on this, is Moodle or Sakai more vulnerable than the other to being purchased?

However  a more interesting scenario might be: Moodle buys Blackboard…

Bizzaro Campus

With the fiscal crisis facing campuses, many operational systems and services that previously may not have normally undergone much scrutiny during the budgeting process, are now being re-assessed: do these services still provide the value they once did or are they still required–and if not–can they be eliminated? Some of these discussions have become popular throughout higher education, resulting in ideas such as: eliminating or reducing land-line phone service in the residence halls as students with cellular phones increase; moving email off campus to third-party services like Google or Live@edu, or; closing academic computer labs in recognition of the growing number of  student-owned laptop computers. It is interesting to consider how the services offered in these three examples have shifted over the years from innovative to key-differentiator to industry-standard to indifference to wasteful.

Bedework Killed the “LMS”

One of the projects I have been following for a long time is Bedework, which I think is now in position to kill the learning management system (LMS). By this, I do not mean to imply that Bedework has superior teaching and learning tools, in fact, as an enterpirse calendar, it clearly does not even compete in the online education market: it’s functionality will not usurp those of the LMS. Rather, more specifically, I suppose my point is that Bedework will kill the idea of the “System” in the “Learning Management System.”

G*

Ok, this is lame, but after reading Christopher Dawson’s “Windows 7 is the same as Ubuntu” it hit me like a no-duh,  Google has essentially met (?) usurped (?) surpassed (?) the idea of WS-*, and what I would have thought only achievable through a MS approach of standardization through dominance, established the web service protocol.

There are a variety of specifications associated with web services. These specifications are in varying degrees of maturity and are maintained or supported by various standards bodies and entities. Specifications may complement, overlap, and compete with each other. Web service specifications are occasionally referred to collectively as “WS-*”, though there is not a single managed set of specifications that this consistently refers to, nor a recognized owning body across them all. The reference term “WS-*” is more of a general nod to the fact that many specifications are named with “WS-” as their prefix. This page includes many of the specifications that might be considered a part of “WS-*”. -Wikipedia

Yes, web services are more than just the aggregation and presentation of widgets (oh, that’s gadgets now), but for all practical purposes WSDL is now “Add Stuff,” (or more appropriately, Gadget API’s and Designer) as well as the ever-growing list of internal Google services (g-mail, google apps, etc.). Not exactly analogous I know, but I guess I am just wondering how development of services might be affected. Will (how long before) folks primarily develop for Google, thus requiring a Google interface for accessing remote services?

So-now the lame part-I am going to coin g-* (pronounced like WS-* as WS star). Of course… “g-*” by Patrick Masson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

SOA Needs To Be “Burried”

Forrester analyst Randy Heffner, has published a report titled “SOA Is Far From Dead—But It Should Be Buried.”

Sparked by a tinderbox of economic jitters and technology backlash, a recent thread of industry discussion cries out, ‘SOA is dead!’ Although many have had fun with the discussion, it is in fact quite misguided. No prior industry initiative for IT architecture has had an impact as positive and broad-reaching as service-oriented architecture (SOA). But SOA’s impact is only part of the story: You have many more technology initiatives besides SOA. You need a bigger architectural vision that encompasses SOA, business process management, event processing, Web 2.0, and much more besides. Although SOA is far from dead, it should be buried inside a larger vision.

What’s In Your Wallet?

What’s the prevailing business management strategy of the day (i.e. governance, decision-making, planning, change management, leadership, visioning, etc.), not just for Higher Education or IT?