oped12

Blackboard CEO steps down. What is next for academic Software?? Can an open source software play a role in the future of the academic LMS. I believe YES it will be a main player for MOOCS and Open Courses acess not only in developing countries but also other wealthy countries.

Statement from co-founder... "In a nutshell, we publish free and low-cost print and electronic textbooks, all of which are professionally edited, peer-reviewed, and typeset, under a Creative Commons BY-SA-NC license. My colleague Andrew Bender succinctly calls us the "Red Hat of textbooks." Like Red Hat, we flourish by freely distributing our core content and charging reasonable fees for value-added versions of our books. Most people respond favorably and tell us that what we are doing is exciting and necessary. Even if they do not understand OER or the publishing business, everyone reacts the same way to the 'Textbook Problem'."

MOOCs - the story so far Sir John Daniel former President & Chief Executive Officer Commonwealth of Learning http://www.tonybates.ca/wp-content/uploads/Making-Sense-of-MOOCs.pdf

"It makes me wonder," Ng said, "if the next Albert Einstein is a little girl in Afghanistan who just needs [the opportunity to access quality education]."