My school used eCollege, a Blackboard competitor. From what I have heard from professors that have used both they are both on par with each other in terms of being absolute shit.
When I was still in school the students attempted to push the administration to go for an open source alternative called Moodle which is miles ahead of anything else.
I haven't used eCollege or Blackboard, but I have used Moodle (as a student) in a couple of courses, and to be honest I found it to be a stunningly mediocre. If it really is miles ahead of everything else then the whole concept of that type of software probably needs to be radically rethought.
PS: I should add that this was a good 3 years ago, so great things may have happened in the meantime.
> If it really is miles ahead of everything else then the whole concept of that type of software probably needs to be radically rethought.
That's pretty much what I thought, reading that. The college I'm at right now uses Moodle, and while it gets the job done it doesn't do so particularly well. Might just be because of how the professors use it (there's a lot of variability in how useful it is between classes), but even in the best cases it's nothing special.
eCollege from the standpoint of an TA was absolute crap, we as students experimented with several professors with Moodle and found it MUCH MUCH better than anything eCollege had to offer.
We used Moodle in the engineering department at my Uni and let me say - its better than blackboard (what isn't?) but its not "miles ahead" by a long shot. Its still pretty awful. I think the space is ripe for disruption.
The biggest problem is that both eCollege and Blackboard hold many patents related to the space, AND any solution has to follow certain guidelines/requirements set forth in some law somewhere (never did try to get more into it, our proposal was shot down hard).
When have security vulnerabilities not been found in Blackboard? Seriously, anyone in Instructional Technology can tell you that Blackboard isn't worth the metaphorical paper it's coded on.
In fact, it's so poorly put together perhaps the paper isn't metaphorical at all, and Blackboard are actually writing out their code by hand and having trained monkeys type the result up.
I have trouble believing anybody who has used Moodle as either an administrator or a student would really believe it's "miles ahead of anything else" unless you'd literally never looked at another LMS at all.
When I was still in school the students attempted to push the administration to go for an open source alternative called Moodle which is miles ahead of anything else.
Speaking of Blackboard, apparently some security vulnerabilities were found: http://www.scmagazineus.com/zero-day-holes-found-in-blackboa...