Yale, Notre Dame Follow MIT’s Example: OpenCourseWare with Video and Audio

The Chronicle reports (subscription required) that Yale will be posting audio and video of select courses for free, for everyone on the Internet. From the Yale press release

"…The project will create multidimensional packages—including fulltranscripts in several languages, syllabi, and other coursematerials—for seven courses and design a web interface for thesematerials, to be launched in the fall of 2007…"

Wow!

The Chronicle article also mentions Notre Dame’s OpenCourseware initiative

"…Notre Dame OCW is a free and open educational resource for faculty,students, and self-learners throughout the world.

We hope you find Notre Dame OCW valuable, whether you’re a studentlooking for some extra help, a faculty member trying to prepare a newcourse, or just interested in learning more about a topic thatinterests you…."

Emphasis mine.

I am delighted to see that they recognize the value of open courseware for other faculty, not just students, because I believe that opening up education will greatly benefit education itself. We had some evidence of this in the Legal Education Podcasting Project where faculty listened to other faculty’s podcasts to improve their own teaching.

This is starting to look like a serious trend with some serious momentum. Here at CALI we are working on a similar project in the area of legal education and podcasting that we call the Legal Education Podcasting Commons. No further information available at this time as we are still in development.

One of our explcit goals, however, is to find ways to serve law faculty so that they can improve their own teaching. The tricky part is making small parts of a course or a lecture ‘findable’ so that you don’t have to wade through dozens of hours of media to find something relevant.

On the student side, we have the same problem. Students want information that will help thme with specific learning objectives and with any text-based information, you can use search engines. Audio and video searching is more problematic and so the next best thing is good metadata with links into the material.

I don’t know if MIT, Yale or Notre Dame is considering the granularity issue in their production. It’s challenging to instructors to think that their material can be taken out of context, but that’s the way students learn.

More on this later.

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The Ed-Tech Equivalent of Yelling ‘FIRE’: BlackBoard’s Patent Suit Against Desire2Learn

Matthew Small, BlackBoard’s General Counsel is quoted today in aChronicle for Higher Education article (subscription required)…

"…"We don’t claim to have invented the course management system," saidMatthew Small, senior vice president and general counsel forBlackboard. "This is about specific functionality."…"

That’s correct, they don’t and some of the hyperbole about their lawsuit has been over the top …. but I would claim not unjustified.

You see, patents are tricky and complex things and no one can really really tell you if something is infringing a patent without the full-on mess of a lawsuit. Everything else is a calculated risk.

This doesn’t cause a complete meltdown of all commerce for several reasons.

  1. The patent holder doesn’t want to kill off everyone who wants to use the patented technology, they want people to use it and pay them a royalty. If they set the royalty price too high, no one buys and the patent holder gets bupkis. This is even true for patent trolls.
  2. In the case where multiple patents are held by multiple companies, they will sometimes agree not to sue each other – either formally or informally. Patent portfolis are like nuclear weapons in that they provide mutually assured destruction to anyone who launches first.
  3. Patent litigation is expensive and a calculated risk for both sides. A company could pay a lot of money just to get the patent and lose it all in the first infringement suit. You place your bets and roll the dice…

The educational technology area hasn’t seen many patent lawsuits. There are patents out there for educational processes and related technologies, but so far, no seems to have pulled the trigger.

BlackBoard is the first to pull the trigger. They launched without warning, they did the equivalent of yelling ‘Fire’ in a crowded theatre and everyone is wondering if they have to scramble for the exits or not.

Mr. Small’s comments seem to indicate that there is a fire, but it’s a small one and it’s only going to burn down one company’s house, but the problem with yelling ‘Fire’ is that everyone else is afraid of it spreading. We panic. This is why it is against the law to yell ‘Fire’ when there isn’t one.

BlackBoard has done the social equivalent. They have created fear and panic in the educational technology community and brought down untold vitriol on their good name. They are still acting surprised by this and I am wondering if this is calculated or plain cluelessness. Either one is not good for BlackBoard.

If they have a real beef with Desire2Learn, they should have worked it out quietly amongst themselves. Companies do this all the time. By making a federal case out it (literally), they invite the court of public opinion to the party.

Desire2Learn is not safe either. If they decide to settle because BlackBoard makes a reasonable offer of settlement (happens all the time), then the whole ed tech community will think we have been shafted by the greedy for-profit companies. It will looked on as a slimy, deal cut in a smoke-filled backroom amongst cigar-chomping corporate barons. It will look like us against them. BlackBoard and Desire2Learn are part of our community, but these activities make us question their allegiances. That’s real bad for everyone. We get nowhere when we can’t trust our community members.

BlackBoard should have seen this coming. There are numerous examples in other parts of the technology world (Microsoft, Rambus, SCO, etc.) and it’s not like them to be so clueless.

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California Western School of Law Podcasts its Experts

When the media is reporting on a new story that involves a courtcase or a legal issue, they naturally turn to legal experts to providecommentary. Many of those experts are law professors and I knowof many law schools that provide lists of law professors with expertisewho are willing to speak on to reporters. It’s a common way toget the law school’s name into the media and out to future applicantpools.

Schools with good media contacts might take this astep further and contact their media sources offering law professorswhen a new story breaks.California Western School of Law takes this a step further and adds a public service twist.

They are posting 10 minute podcasts from their faculty on current legal issues.

"… Law in 10 is a weekly podcast produced by California Western School of Law, which brings you an expert analysis of the latest legal news, all in 10 minutes…"

CWSL is posting one of these podcasts per week and so far have covered such topics as the legality of Presidentt Bush’s military tribunals, a local (San Diego) police shooting incident and changes to the legal workplace due to generational gaps (and others).

Ten minutes is more than you would get on CNN or Fox when they turn to an expert and these podcasts not only benefit the listeners, they benefit the law school and the faculty who are speaking.

It’s a brilliant idea.

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Bottom Up Podcasting – Law Students Willing to Help Law Professors

Professor Mike Madison at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law has decided to podcast one of his courses – well, sort of.

"…Classes began yesterday, and right off the bat, a first-year studentapproached me and asked me if I minded his recording the class…."

He has allowed the student to do the podcasting for his class (and the rest of the students), but he asks some excellent questions about this new trend and there some excellent discussion ensues in the comments to this post on his excellent blog Madisonian.

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Inside the Mind of a Law School Dean

Ever wondered what Deans do?

Dean Frank H. Wu of Wayne State University Law School provides some insight. In what I believe to be the first ever law school Dean blog, he has been regularly posting articles here.

When I first saw the blog created on Classcaster, I was afraid it would see very infrequent posts or posts of little substance. Instead, Dean Wu has been righting insightful and useful articles – ostensibly aimed at his own students and law school community at Wayne State, but interesting to everyone else in legal education as well.

He has been posting about once a week since the beginning of the school year and has embarked on a "series" …

" …. In a series of posts to this blog, I’ll describe “what a dean does.” Itis important to ensure all stakeholders are aware of theresponsibilities of anyone who is entrusted with a leadership role…."

I know its tough to blog and wonder if anyone is reading. The key is compelling content and honesty and I think Dean Wu has made a great start.

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Podcasting The Classroom is Law School’s Tivo

An excellent article in the TimesOnline compares the podcasting ofuniversity lectures to time-shifting television shows like you can dowith Tivo or other digital recorders or like you can do when youdownload televisions shows from iTunes or watch videso on YouTube.

Ithink this is an apt comparison. Podcasting gives students moreoptions to integrate their learning into their busy schedules. Podcasts lets the student attend the class and re-attend the classagain and again. Some of the students who responded to our surveyabout the Legal Education Podcasting Project admitted to listening tosome podcasts several times.

Isn’t that a good thing?

The article mentions the sticking point with some faculty and universties…

"… The primary reason for not wiring up thelecture hall is the fear it will upset the traditional classroomdynamic. Podcasts will become a study aid for the truant student, goesthe thinking, and if the podcasts catch on, students will skip class enmasse and the entire learning experience will be thrown into turmoil…"

Our student survey also revealed that very few students admittedto skipping class because of the availability of the podcast. Theinstructors (who we also interviewed) reported no noticable change inattendance patterns, but it may be too early to tell.

TechnicianOnline reportsthat Professor Robert Schrag at North Carolina State University offeredhis students podcasts for $2.50 per download. One day later, theChronicle reports that he was asked to stop this service almost as soon as it was reported and discussed on Slashdot.

The students seemed happy to have the service available. I am notcertain that having to pay for the service above and beyond the cost oftuition is a great idea, however.

We had a student(link to interview with the law student) volunteer to record and postall of his instructor’s lectures and we provided him with a digitalrecorder to do so (after he got permission from the instructors, ofcourse) and I have blogged on the idea that students would probably bemore than willing to handle the small amount of work necessary tocreate and post the podcasts. With CALI providing the blog, disk spaceand bandwidth via Classcaster, there is almost no cost to law faculty who want to make their classroom lectures available to their students and others.

I was most gratified to read this quote from the TimesOnline articlequoting Sally Feldman, the Dean of Westminster University’s School forMedia, Arts and Design and chair of the university’s web group…

"… One of the reasons the podcast will become as essential as the pen and paper is because of the growing need for accountability in the classroom, she adds: "It is about time that we started being more concerned about performance in education."…"

I see accountability as the "stick" in this discussion, but it can also be a "carrot" where faculty can learn from each other’s lectures or even from listening to their own podcasts. We don’t talk much about professional development of law faculty as educators and podcasting may be a way to back into that conversation.

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BlackBoard Says They Won’t Sue Open Source – Put It In Writing!

Inside HigherEd has recently posted an article about the BlackBoard patent issue and in it BlackBoard’s General Counsel Matthew Small opines…

"…Blackboard has no plans tochallenge open source projects on patent issues, and he said that suchchallenges “wouldn’t make good business sense” for the company…"

That’s great to hear, but it seems that BlackBoard is struggling to get people to believe them when they say this. There is a simple solution.

Put it in writing.

What I mean is that now that BlackBoard has the patent, they can license it to the Sakai Project or Martin Dougimas (aka "Mr. Moodle") or others. We know they have lawyers, so it should be a simple matter to draft up a license agreement that gives sufficient rights to Sakai and others so that they can stop worrying.

It would go a long way towards assuaging the communities fears.

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New Milestone: CALI has over 200 US Law School Members

I am delighted to post that CALI now has 201 US Law School Members.

This past week, the University of Virginia School of Law joined CALI and the recently launched, Drexel University College of Law also joined.

This brings the number of US Law School CALI Members to over 200 for the first time in our 26 years of existence and represents almost every law school in the US.

For a complete list of CALI’s members and affiliates, click here.

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BlackBoard v. Desire2Learn: Next Steps

I went in search of information that would help me understand howthe BlackBoard v. Desire2Learn case might play out and want to sharethe results of my research with you.

It is important to point out that I am not a lawyer and that none ofwhat I write or say should be interpreted as legal advice or thecreation of a lawyer/client releationship.

I found an excellent article at The Minerals, Metals & MaterialsSociety’s website in JOM: The Member Journal of TMS written by A.B.Silverman at Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott, LLC. The title of thearticle is "I’ll See You In Court" and it describes the general stepsthat take place in a patent infringement litigation. I highly recommend all of the articles written by Silverman. They are short and easy to understand and provide a great summary of the issues surrounding patent litigation.

Silverman writes…

"…Becausepatent litigation can be very time consuming, expensive, and uncertainas to the result, it is generally initiated only after a thoroughevaluation of the case and reasonable efforts to resolve the matter amicably have failed…"

Emphasis mine.

As we already know, BlackBoard seems to have skipped this step. From the August 2, 2006 Chronicle of Higher Education article

"… John Baker, president and chief executive of Desire2Learn, said it wasunfortunate Blackboard had decided to go to court before trying tonegotiate the dispute…"

Silverman then explains that once the suit is filed, it will usually include an injunction from the patentee (i.e. BlackBoard) to require the infringer (i.e. Desire2Learn) to stop the infringing activity. BlackBoard has done just that (here‘s the complaint in PDF from Desire2Learn’s website)

Silverman tells us that the infringer can file a suit against the patentee to have the patent declared invalid. This is a likely strategy for Desire2Learn and will probably be the next step in the case. They have 20 days to respond to the 7/26/06 complaint filed by BlackBoard (that’s this coming Tuesday, August 15).

Silverman goes on to explain what happens in the trial, but we are very far from that step.

The case will likely start out with a war of motions to limit claims and stipulate points of agreement (if any exist) between the two parties. This is expensive litigation for both sides.

The Burdick Law Firm has a article describing the costs of Discovery and Trial at $100,000 and $300,000 respectively with the caveat that discovery will be …

"… typically much higher if large monetary value involved…"

…which seems to be the case here. Desire2Learn is a private company, so it’s financials are not generally available, but I would assume that this patent threatens their core business and that this represents millions of dollars for them.

This is an incentive for Desire2Learn to settle the case before discovery gets too expensive and before the trial actually starts. BlackBoard’s General Counsel, Matthew Small is quoted in the same Chronicle article

"…We are seeking a reasonable royalty…"

I don’t know whether Desire2Learn will settle, but that has to be the math they are doing right now. The cost of settling and paying a royalty to license the patent versus the cost of litigating the patent.

The ed-tech community would like to see the patent invalidated because it might threaten open source projects like Moodle, Sakai and others, but Desire2Learn doesn’t have to serve this community. After all, they are competing with open source as much as BlackBoard.

Lawsuits can be expensive distractions for growing companies, but there is another angle for both BlackBoard and Desire2Learn to consider here and I covered it in my first post this topic.

The response from the ed-tech community has been to cast BlackBoard as the "black hat" (pun intended) in this dispute and so that naturally assumes that Desire2Learn can be the "white hat". I call this litigation as marketing. By championing this cause, Desire2Learn can gain goodwill from the community. This has to be part of the math they are doing regarding this case.

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Where are BlackBoard’s Defenders?

I have been following the reaction to the BlackBoard patent closely and I am struck by the fact that I can’t find anyone defending BlackBoard’s actions.

I have seen some people explain why they understand that patents are important and why they think BlackBoard feels compelled to patent their work, but I haven’t seen a single instance of someone saying…

"…BlackBoard did the right thing by getting this patent and suing Desire2Learn…"

… except BlackBoard, of course.

Now, they’re a big company and they don’t need anyone to stick up for them, but when you own 80% of a marketplace and have over 3000 customers, you would think that someone would stand up and say something nice about you.

I did some Google searches for "defending BlackBoard" and such and most of the hits were along the line of "I’m not defending BlackBoard…".

This is very telling. Even SCO and Microsoft have their defenders, shills, syncophants and lobbyists.

Is BlackBoard’s customer base that tepid?

I’m stunned.

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