The Blackboard Learning System: The Be All and End All in Educational Instruction?

TLDR

Blackboard Inc. offers widely used educational instruction, communication, and assessment systems, competing with other LMS such as Moodle, Sakai, and open‑source platforms. The study questions whether Blackboard’s dominance is beneficial for higher education and examines committee debates and applications in distance and hybrid courses. Over the past three years, Blackboard has marketed the Commerce and Academic Suites, with the Academic Suite’s core being the Blackboard Learning System that supports classroom and online instruction.

Abstract

Blackboard Inc. provides powerful and easy-to-use systems for educational instruction, communication, and assessment. In the last three years, Blackboard Inc. has marketed two major product lines: the Blackboard Commerce Suite and the Blackboard Academic Suite. The core of the Academic suite is the Blackboard Learning System, the course management system for classroom and online educational assistance. Other course management systems and learning management systems exist, including Angel/LMS, eCollege, GNU General Public License/Linux, and LearningSpace, as well as open-source learning systems such as The Sakai Project, Open SourcePortfolio Initiative, Moodle, and uPortal. Despite the drive toward new portal commodities, the Blackboard Learning System has become the dominant e-learning software company. Is this necessarily good for higher educational learning? Members of the United University Professions Technology Issues Committee debate the issue as well as present specific applications of the Blackboard Learning System in distance learning, hybrid courses, and as didactic supplements to other electronic environment enhancement systems.