Maccann, Ann wrote:
The institution I am at - the Open and Training Network in Technical and Further Education in NSW Australia - changed away from Blackboard to a proprietary product called Janison, partly because of expense, partly as Blackboard is set up for unis with their course nomenclature, and we had different ways of referring to things. You had to put a separate page in if you weren't using their templates, so students had to log in, move to the course page, then move to a third page if they were using software that wasn't in a Blackboard template. It all got quite confusing!
I assume that CityU can afford BlackBoard. We have BlackBoard but we got it via a grant and we are quite concerned with the annual licensing fee (we're not only small we're poor). We explored the idea of switching to a free (with a small f) solution last year. Have been able to put it off. FOSS software is also infinitely customizable but you need to have the resources and skills to do so. There is probably a market for installation, customization, and hosting services -- something like the Pilot Online Training someone mentioned but with FOSS. -- Dr. Robert G. Rittenhouse, Chair Department of Computer Science McMurry University, Abilene, TX 79697-0968