Home > BlackBoard Launches Education Social Bookmark Service

News

BlackBoard Launches Education Social Bookmark Service

1/17/2007

Course management system giant Blackboard has launched a social bookmarking service--"customized for education"--and aimed at Blackboard and WebCT customers.

The service, called Scholar, will be integrated into the Blackboard Learning System. It is the first offering of the company's "Beyond Initiative," designed to connect its users "worldwide, across education segments and disciplines, and thus leverage the wisdom of the community for teaching and learning," according to Blackboard.

The service has all the features of bookmarking services like del.icio.us, including tagging and RSS feeds, but is designed to make it easier for students to tag Web content for a particular course or major. Course tags are automatically generated based on students' enrollments in Blackboard.

Scott Leslie, a blogger on higher education technologies, wrote on his blog EdTechPost that Blackboard will likely get "demonized" from the social Web community for offering the service. "Me," he wrote, "sure I'd love to see systems that instead of creating additional silos and enclaves, allowed users to move in an authenticated form from the institution's systems to ones out on the general Web, you know, have my cake and eat it too," Leslie wrote.

"But the customers (that's you, right) have got to demand this, not expect vendors whose whole business model is 'lock in' to simply just provide it. And the sad fact of the matter is that none of the Internet-wide identity plays seem really up to this. Yet."

More info:


Paul McCloskey is a contributing editor for the Campus Technology group of publications.

Cite this Site

Paul McCloskey, "BlackBoard Launches Education Social Bookmark Service," Campus Technology, 1/17/2007, http://www.campustechnology.com/article.aspx?aid=45157

copy text (above) for proper citation



Recommended Reading
  • Campus Security :: June 27, 2008

    :::::: NETWORK SECURITY

    : Delivering Slices of Network Securely at USC

    :::::: CAMPUS SECURITY NEWS

    : VMware Finds Home on Campus in Disaster Recovery Planning
    : Microsoft Advisory Targets SQL Injection Attacks
    : Mobile Security To Surface in Sybase iAnywhere Suite
    : Southeast Missouri State Says Former Employee Took Student Data
    : Universities Deploy Procera Hardware to Prioritize Network Traffic
    : Dartmouth Launches 2-Week Crash Course in Security
    : Survey: Many Microsoft Patches Are Going Uninstalled
    : New Bluetooth Patch Fixes XP Security Hole

  • IT Trends :: Thursday, June 26, 2008

    :::::: FOCUS

    :: Lyon's 1:1 Laptop Program Aims To 'Level the Playing Field' for Students

    :::::: IT NEWS

    :: Windows XP's Death Is for Real, Microsoft Rep Explains
    :: Temple To Deploy Wireless LAN Across 8 Campuses in Philly
    :: Adobe Releases Acrobat 9, Creative Suite 3.3
    :: Microsoft Open XML Converter Arrives for Mac
    :: Pentaho's BI Platform Released Under GPL
    :: New Bluetooth Patch Fixes XP Security Hole
    :: New 11.0 openSuSE Linux OS Released

  • C-Level View :: June 25, 2008

    :::::: EXECUTIVE VIEW

    : The Educational Software Paradox - Can We Learn to Unlearn?

    :::::: WORTH NOTING

    : D2L: Blackboard's Comments 'Contempt(ible)'
    : Ohio State Installing Interactive Technologies in Campus Incubator
    : New Green Supercomputer Powers Up at Purdue
    : Western Governors U Offers New Online Degree in Health Informatics
    : Foothill-De Anza CC District Deploys Abaca for E-mail Protection

  • SmartClassroom :: Wednesday, June 27, 2008

    :::::: VIEWPOINT

    : Podcasting in Instruction: Moving Beyond the Obvious

    :::::: NEWS and PRODUCT UPDATES

    : D2L: Blackboard's Comments 'Contempt(ible)'
    : Ohio State Installing Interactive Technologies in Campus Incubator
    : Samsung Launches Pint-Sized Projector
    : Mediasite 5.0 Debuts; New Classroom Recorders Coming in July
    : Mitsubishi Launches Wireless, Short-Throw Projectors

  • News Update :: Tuesday, June 24, 2008

    :::::: NEWS

    : Sao Paulo University Taps Sun Technology for Computing Cluster
    : Ohio State Installing Interactive Technologies in Campus Incubator
    : New Green Supercomputer Powers Up at Purdue
    : Mediasite 5.0 Debuts; New Classroom Recorders Coming in July
    : Intel 'Holding Back' USB 3.0 Spec, Says Nvidia
    : Allegheny College Launches Energy Reduction Program
    : Virginia Tech Automates User State Management with Kaseya
    : Tokai U Uses PTC MCAD Software To Design Car that Competes at Le Mans

  • IT Trends :: Thursday, June 19, 2008

    :::::: CASE STUDY

    :: Job Scheduling Software Smooths Data Transfers at IUF

    :::::: IT NEWS

    :: Blackboard Continues Pursuit of Desire2Learn
    :: IBM Launches 'Carbon Strategy' Service in Project Big Green
    :: Microsoft Joins Open Source Census Group
    :: Swedes Deploy Dual-Boot 'Green' Supercomputer with IBM, Intel Chips
    :: U North Texas To Roll Out ImageNow for Document Management
    :: Cambridge Installs Panasus Parallel Storage System for Research Support
    :: Novell Joins Microsoft Server Virtualization Validation Program, Runs Windows Server 2008 On SUSE Linux Enterprise