Blackboard Gets into School Bundling Business

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 07/16/14

During its annual conference, BbWorld 2014, taking place this week in Las Vegas, Blackboard has made several announcements regarding new forms of packaging and delivery for its multiple products. The company announced a software-as-a-service model for its flagship learning management system (LMS); it also is releasing "solution sets" of applications appropriate for a specific school need or environment; and it has bundled a set of products for Internet2 members.

The public cloud version of Blackboard Learn will be available later this summer to customers alongside an on-premises self-hosted edition and a Blackboard-hosted private cloud edition. The SaaS approach is intended to provide customers with automatic delivery of the environment's latest features.

The company's Open Education platform, which hosts massive open, online courses, is currently in beta testing through the SaaS approach.

"We are very excited to bring a broader cloud strategy to market that give schools a wide variety of reliable and sustainable deployment options," said Mark Strassman, Blackboard's senior vice president of product management.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • robot waving

    Copilot Updates Aim to Personalize AI

    Microsoft has introduced a range of updates to its Copilot platform, marking a new phase in its effort to deliver what it calls a "true AI companion" that adapts to individual users' needs, preferences and routines.

  • laptop and fish hook

    Security Researchers Identify Generative AI 'Vishing' Attack

    A new report from researchers at Ontinue's Cyber Defense Center has identified a complex, multi-stage cyber attack that leveraged social engineering, remote access tools, and signed binaries to infiltrate and persist within a target network.

  • SXSW EDU

    3 Opportunities to Get Hands-on with AI at SXSW EDU 2025

    This March 3-6 in Austin, TX, the SXSW EDU Conference & Festival celebrates its 15th year of exploring the most critical issues in education and providing a forum for creativity, innovation, and expression.

  • a professional worker in business casual attire interacting with a large screen displaying a generative AI interface in a modern office

    Study Finds Generative AI Could Inhibit Critical Thinking

    A new study on how knowledge workers engage in critical thinking found that workers with higher confidence in generative AI technology tend to employ less critical thinking to AI-generated outputs than workers with higher confidence in personal skills.