Open Letter to Blue Systems re: recent ice storm BB problems

[woodsmoke]

I will keep this very simple because a good idea is simple.

There are known bugs with Blackboard(the dominant intranet, grading, messaging, etc. system for schools(mainly colleges) ) that have not been addressed.

There are many posts about them and they litter the net, just search for some of these terms and college "fixes". (the college btw cannot "fix" it, it is a BB problem).

The last ice storm has forced many colleges and universities to reschedule "days to take the finals".

This has had a cascade of BAD effect in that the Deans of the colleges have often had to tell instructors to tell the students (through blackboard) what the instructor wants done to alleviate the situation.

However, surprise, surprise, when they make the attempt it has to be on an individual student e-mail, not any kind of "class e-mail"

There are many known bugs but here are two CRUCIAL ones which have now created a perfect storm with probably thousands of instructors and many dozens of institutions.

a) The drop down menu within the grading portion of BB has a function to "e-mail selected users".

The drop down menu appears but when one moves the mouse, using a Windows system (depending on the version), and Internet Explorer, the menu disappears and the functions cannot be accessed. There are no "ctrl-functions" to do this.

Ok.....the teacher can go to MS outlook and manually obtain the students e-mails and do a mass e-mail from there.

Ain't gonna happen for an instructor at a very large institution who has a hundred and twenty students in a lecture. Which one of the dozens of "Jim Jones" is her or his student?

b) The copy and past function does not work in the message body within BB. A popup appears which says: "your browser does not support this function, use ctrl+c to copy, etc.

The ctrl + codes do not work.

So, even though the instructor might be able to e-mail people a message has to be typed individually for each.

c) As an illustration of how ludicrous the situation is, using a Vista system with the latest windows FF ......

the drop down selection menu works!

The copy and past functions do not.

Neither work with IE.

d) Imagine the woes of the people running a Mac which is the dominant desktop system for many academics.

Here is the HIDDEN opportunity.

a) Blackboard bought the "providers" for the latest and best two open source versions of this: Moodle and Sakai.

An article has been posted elsewhere about how they are going to "support them etc." Right, they have bought two others previously and buried them.

b) Of course the source code is still open anyone can develop it.

c) I was SURPRISED to hear just recently that the community college whereat I teach has the whole stack below BB and the grading system running LINUX!

d) the colleges are HARD PRESSED financially. Yes, some of the real biggies who are getting plenty of government money are "doing OK" but none of them are doing really well.

e) The "academics" like Apple products and NOT MS products. Now, yes, laboratories quite often have to run MS products to run equipment but....

the "academics" are probably READY for a change from BB.

VERY FEW academics like BB.

f) If Blue Systems communicated SOONEST with a "consortium" of junior colleges in an ACTIVE state, such as mine, and offered a tunkey system I think they would actively work with Blue Systems.

g) They will have the memory of what has happened fresh in their corporate structure.

h) what would be needed would be to integrate Kubuntu, Sakai or Moodle and Firefox and provide a complete, turnkey, package for the institution which would operate correctly from "within", that is instructor use at the institution, and also "remote" use by instructors using FF on a windows or Linux system, and whatever running animal Mac people use.

I offer that NO instructor would complain about having to use a FREE Firefox on their Windows system at home if they had a functioning Sakai or Moodle.

To the students, of course, this would be transparent since they would only interact with the "surface" of the system, through "observation"... with the exception of e-mail, messaging, chatrooms, drop box etc. But then that is the point of the system in the first place.

i) whether this could be done atop a Windows or any other stack I do not know.

j) the Junior Colleges is where the "action" is in terms of student enrollment because of massively lower costs.

k) but the lower costs come with a trade off, they have very, very, tight budgets.

l) But the tight budgets, the active DISlike of many/most academics of BB, and the recent events of the ice storm may just have created a....

perfect storm!

m) I humbly submit that now, not later, would be a perfect opportunity to make headway with "Linux" on both the "server side" and the "desktop side".

woodsmoke

[claydoh]

[woodsmoke]

Cut to the chase:

On a leap of faith,

a) Blue Systems pivots to get either Sakai or Moodle working and completely integrate it into Kubuntu/Kubuntu "server".

b) Blue Systems integrates FF, working with Mozilla Foundation, to integrate FF with either Sakai or Moodle in Kubuntu/ Kubuntu Server.

c) Blue Systems approaches a large enough entity, probably a "consortium" of small colleges which can "pivot" and

NEEDS to have a relatively inexpensive system, and also a completely working system( advertising and status value for the consortium of colleges).

d) Blue Systems makes money

e) Kubuntu saves the day! lol.....welll maybe not, but is instrumental on getting "Linux" ..."more mainstream".

UNscratchingofheademoticonthingyhere! lol

woodsmoke

[woodsmoke]

This is now bordering on the ludicrous.

I am AT THE COLLEGE.

In FF on the latest greatest Windows and the "email selected users" does work. But the copy and paste function does not.

In the latest and greatest, updated every night, IE, the "email selected users" does NOT work but the copy and paste function does.

So, this is a problem WHEREVER a person tries to do the functions, not just at home.

These are KNOWN bugs, just search the net.

An opportunity awaits those who are bold.

woodsmoke

[whatthefunk]

I think Blue Systems has a lot more important stuff to deal with. Like whether Kubuntu will survive the Ubuntu transition to Mir...

[claydoh]

Blue Systems, remember, is simply a sponsor of some developers and such, they (he?) I don't think have the resources, manpower, or whatever to take on such a project.

Sent from my DNA using Tapatalk, like that really matters

[woodsmoke]

lol
valid points!

But, possibly this could provide valuable money to get more developers!

just a thought.

woodsmoke

[claydoh]

I imagine other Moodle/Sakai service providers might step in to fill any voids, as the software itself is f/oss.

[whatthefunk]

lol
valid points!

But, possibly this could provide valuable money to get more developers!

just a thought.

woodsmoke

This would be a massive investment of both time and resources. Blue Systems would have to hire a team of full time developers to build the system, a team of sales reps to go out and pitch the product to the tech companies you mentioned and to universities around the US/world, they would have to hire support staff to handle the day to day business such an operation requires, and they would need customer support staff to handle customer issues. In 2011, Blackboard had 1,780 employees... This probably isnt as easy as you think....

[woodsmoke]

WhattheFunk

You are quite correct, I did not say it would be easy.

I have started two businesses, neither were easy.

As to a team of sales reps. I would beg to differ. I, or some other well connected, to universites, Kubuntu person in the U.S. could just call the colleges of the consortiums and ask to have a talk. Yeah, somebody would have to pay for airfare, etc.

As to developing for a lot of colleges, again, I would beg to differ. If, and probably, one found a consortium of colleges that had a leader willing to talk then that consortioum would have money available. There is an OCEAN of money out there for doing ANYTHING to at least LOOK like they are trying "to do better" "enhance learning" "think out of the box", "change the paradigm" all the alphabet soup of education jargon.

If such a consortium was found all that needs to be done is show the representatives of the consortium a working Kubuntu/Kubuntu Server/Sakai/Moodle machine and let them see the capabilities.

If they are ok with it, then they start the grant writing process, or...in most cases.....just filling out their own, in state, funding request.

As to team of developers.

Ummmm Sakai and Moodle are already both ready to go. Kubuntu/Kubuntu Server is ready to go.

It should be EASY to get the two integrated.

If it is not then neither Sakai or Moodle are really ready for prime time.

If the cosortium is willing to sign papers that they will get their end of the money in line, then Blue Systems, or Ubuntu or SOMEBODY should have the chutzpa to step up and say that they could commit either money for developers or just get developers involved.

There is a book that was all the rage a few years ago.

It is called the Cathedral and the Bazaar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat...and_the_Bazaar

The author basically posited that if the open source idea was valid, then a FLOCK OF DEVLOPERS would FLOCK to help with it.

That the project could be done quickly and well.

I.............personally...........opined......... .that the reason he got the software developed that he wanted was because...........

He was a charismatic, popular guy and a lot of people wanted to be on his coat tails and also do a nice piece of software and have their names attached thereunto.

The Linux community, and Canonical, etc. all keep bemoaning the situation of.........."nobody takes us seriously outside of Linuxdom".

Well here is a chance to actually get on with the program.

Or not.

Here is an example:

Back whin One Laptop Per Child was being developed, I actually had quite a bit of loose cash, as in a lot of loose cash.

I physically:

a) e-mailed the OLPC people
b) snail mailed the OLPC people
c) CALLED the OLPC people

with a proposal that the schools in my county would ALL buy the OLPC lappys for ALL of the students.

I, personally, would buy and donate to the schools, ten of the OLPCs for each school to "show good faith".

I personally knew all of the superintendents. They all trusted me. They all said they would do it.

Now that was going to be on the order of about 2000 units.

The OLPC people were BEGGING FOR BIG GOVERNMENT to PLEASE give them the money, in the form of grants, to just sell ONE............ of the OLPCs

I had CONTRACTS in hand.

Nobody called back, nobody wrote, nobody emailed.

All I could ever get to talk to was a secretary.

i physically presented myself to a developer of the OLPC at the state's land grant university and asked if he could PLEASE get me into contact with OLPC.

He looked like a scared rabbit!

So......maybe Blue Systems, maybe Canonical, maybe Red Hat, maybe, maybe, maybe, just don't have the desire to do what they keep complaining that they want to do....

Do I have any more loose cash....ummmmm no..........thanks to the last five years of doldrums my stock investments went into the tank along with the rest of the economy.

So....

I'm just saying that here is an opportunity.

woodsmoke

[whatthefunk]

Im really confused. Why do Moodle and Sakai even need Kubuntu?

[woodsmoke]

They do not.

But, why not have the colleges go completely open source?

Kubuntu on the local machines in the college

and thereby the student workstations, except for those that are "IT" in terms of students taking a "MS office" class.

The employees really do have a limited subset of uses for the computer.

They will not need to have a ten thousand dollar CAD program, or even a MS greeting card making program.

Basically they have to do WP very little spreadsheet and almost no database.

By and large the instructors will ONLY interact with the system using a word processor and Blackboard.

if the instructor is say, a research scientist that has to use a particular MS centric application then that is provided.

The students REALLY only interact with the college on the "intranet". The intranet might as well be a Kubuntu GUI as a MS GUI.

Even something like a UV-visible light analysis machine exports either it's own proprietary format information which is optimized for Windblows but nowadays, as i saw at a recent chem conference, it is exported as Rich Text Format and the data is copied and pasted into a spreadsheet for analysis, or.... the company will gladly provide it's proprietary software for a fee.

Another example is that the college is "maybe" going to spend a couple of hundred thousand dollars to completely integrate, across all campuses, the science inventory( materials like beakers and chemicals).

I, personally, along with the dept. lab assistant, have already done this using Google docs for this campus biology materials.

I complained mightily here at the forum when a demonstration of it went very wrong and my laptop, using Kubuntu a few years ago, locked up.

However, the people could see the possibilities but were still very Windows centric and the attitude was, if we really need to do this some day we will spend the money.

Well, money, is now tighter than it was back then because the flood of money from the Feds has been throttled back.

this could be the impetus, along with Moodle, or whatever, to maybe get a group of power players to really consider Linux.

In any case, more people would be exposed to Linux.

woodsmoke

[GreyGeek]

I think Blue Systems has a lot more important stuff to deal with. Like whether Kubuntu will survive the Ubuntu transition to Mir...

I have little doubt that Kubuntu will survie Ubuntu's transition to Mir ... because it won't make the transit. That was the point of my post about Kubuntu changing its base distro.

[SteveRiley]

I think it's a little early to predict Kubuntu's demise.

If the flavors band together to create and maintain an X and a Wayland stack, Kubuntu could continue to build on the Ubuntu base. Perhaps this work could be done within Xorg-Edgers.

[woodsmoke]

SRwrote:

Well, straight, we want it built and packaged so we don't need to know what we're doing, except that we will break our X and put our computers on fire.

Now THAT is what MOST ...."users" are talkin' about! If they could put the thing on an extra HD and let it go down in flames and then report what happened....

I, personally, think that the forum could start a WHOLE NEW SUBforum!

woodsetthedam#thingonfiresmoke! lol