Blackboard’s bogus patent claims are hurting lot of innovative efforts. Desire2Learn, company based out of Canada, has released a open letter to Blackboard CEO, urging them to drop all patent claims. Here is a full letter:

Dear Michael,

We at Desire2Learn Incorporated have a vision for a world without barriers to education. It is my hope that you share this vision. We have both built companies to meet the needs of students and educators. Our clients, educators from around the world, work with us tirelessly to put education first. There is no greater need today than for education to develop leaders, visionaries, scientists, humanitarians and entrepreneurs.

Take a stand with us to further the pursuit of education for all. Our clients want us to work collaboratively with them as they strive to provide the best teaching and learning technology, especially in these uncertain and fiscally-challenging times. If you drop your recent lawsuit, both of our companies will be saved unnecessary expense and a great deal of unproductive energy. We will also help avoid needless distraction in the educational community.

We are prepared to donate $1,000,000 to non-profit schools and other educational organizations if you stop the litigation before this money goes to lawyers. As we both know, the only winners in the last litigation were our law firms. Education lost.

Indeed, I urge you to show your goodwill and commitment to education by having Blackboard make a donation and by ceasing senseless litigation. We do not infringe, and do not want to infringe on, your latest or any, Blackboard software patents.

$1,000,000 from Desire2Learn can make a significant difference for thousands of students through the purchase of laptops, technology, supplies and other much needed educational support. Blackboard can contribute to that impact and, perhaps with matching grants, the effect can be multiplied. In fact, we commit to placing up to 50% of the $1,000,000 that we donate to schools in need within and around your head office area, Washington, D.C.

Michael, please join me in this mission. It’s your choice. Support education or litigation. By taking this immediate action together we can make a positive and lasting impact on education, while still respecting each other’s intellectual property. I await your timely response.

Sincerely,

/s/

John Baker
President and CEO
Desire2Learn Incorporated

cc: Blackboard Board of Directors (regular mail):

Mr. Matthew S. Pittinsky, Chairman of the Board
Mr. Joseph L. Cowan
Mr. Frank Gatti
Mr. Thomas Kalinske
Ms. Beth Kaplan
Mr. Roger Novak
Mr. William Raduchel

Though our dated patent system is partly to blame, but comprehensive manner in which Blackboard received patent in this very important, and emerging, sector deserves industry review.

Software Freedom Law Center is requesting US patent office to review all 44 patents owned by Blackboard. As those who follow LMS space know that Blackboard has started enforcing their patent rights against other vendors.

Eben Moglen puts it nicely:

“In a free society, there is no room for a monopoly on any part of the educational process”

In a related move, Supreme Court has also asked patent office to review the obviousness of recent patents.

Need more proof of rotting patent provisioning process in this country then check how Blackboard managed to receive comprehensive
patent on elearning management software. It seems in order to stem the declining revenue
and seeing the phenomenal growth of open source alternatives they decided to raise the legal stakes.
May be in the process they are sending signal to Moodle, Sakai and other popular eLMS softwares. This is FUD at it’s best.

Most funny aspect of this bizarre legal challenge is the Blackboard FAQ posted on their website -

My institution doesn’t use a Blackboard system but uses a competitor’s course management
system. How are we affected? Evaluating patents can be complex and because we don’t know
the specifics of how your system works, we would encourage you to consult with your CMS
provider for answers.

There are lot of insightful commentaries by lot of people. Some links worth visiting:

O Reilly on this issue.
Call for Blackboard boycott
Discussion on Moodle forum

Once you have taken the dump of the database then you can restore using the dump.sql files(learn here to take the dump/back-up from database).

In phpMyAdmin simply click on the SQL tab and then from there you can browse the dump.sql file that you have stored after taking the dump. If the structure is not there then first of all import the structure file which will create the structure of the table and later you can import the dump.sql file which is having the data.

Through phpMyAdmin it that simple. If you find any problem in importing the whole file. Then you can cut and paste the queries and populate them in the database.

Through the command prompt you can simply use these commands to restore the database. First of all go to the directory where the dump.sql file is stored and from there run these commands:

mysql -u USERNAME -pPASSWORD DATABASENAME dump.sql

Put the less than sign between DATABASENAME and dump.sql

This command will populate the dump in your database and then you will have your data back in your application.

It is very important to take the back-up of your data as well as the application to keep things moving and to be on the safer side. It is wiser to take the back-up of data and structure both. There are several ways to take the back-up.

If you are using phpMyAdmin then you it very easy to take the back-up. Simply select Moodle database and then export that database. Now it will show you all the tables within and the options to save that file. Select all the files and then check the radio button to take the dump as SQL, LaTeX or CSV. If this is the first time you are taking the back-up then I would prefer to take the Data and Structure individually meaning there will be two SQL files created at the end, one which will be having the structure of table and the another one which will be having the data. It is wiser to take the back-up of data as it changes every time and the structure remains the same most of the time.

The other method of taking the back-up is through the command prompt. In the Linux (DOS on Windows) go to the mysql/bin folder and run these commands:

mysqldump -u USERNAME -pPASSWORD DATABASE-NAME dump.sql

Replace the USER, PASSWORD and DATABASE-NAME with your MySQL settings respectively. This command will take the dump of structure and data both. To take the individual run these commands:

mysqldump -u USERNAME -pPASSWORD -t DATABASE-NAME dump_data.sql

This command will give you the dump of data only(no structure).

mysqldump -u USERNAME -pPASSWORD -d DATABASE-NAME dump_structure.sql

Put the greater than sign between DATABASE-NAME and dump.sql

This command will give you the dump of structure only(no data).

Running these commands will create the dump.sql files in the same directory where you are present. In this case, these files can be found at mysql/bin directory.

Soemtimes we want to change the site settings or want to change the site description. In Moodle we can do this through admin login and then going to the administration>>configuration and selecting the Site settings. Here we can change the site name and short name which appears in the breadcrumb, also we can change the description. This feature helps in managing our Moodle site more efficiently and dynamically.

Multiple Choice-:
Both single and multiple answers multiple choice questions are possible.

True/False-:
A simple multiple choice question with only two possible answers.

Short Answer-:
Students answer this question by typing a word or a phrase. You need to provide a list of acceptable answers.

Numerical-:
A short answer question which accepts a numerical value instead of a word.

Matching-:
Standard two-column matching question

Description-:
       This just embeds some text into the quiz. It’s not a question but it’s useful for giving mid-quiz instructions

Random Short-Answer Matching-:
An interesting question type. The subquestions for the matching exercise are randomly drawn from short answer questions in the category.

Embedded Answers (Cloze)-:
A question with multiple questions embedded within it. This is not completely done yet, so I’m not going to cover this type in depth.

Time Limit

Determines how long students have to take the quiz. At the end of the time allotted, the quiz is automatically submitted with the current answers.

Questions per page

Determines the number of Question to be placed on per page, it depends on tutor how many question have to be on single page.

Shuffle Questions

Set this to “Yes” to randomly reorder the quiz questions when they are displayed to the students

Shuffle Answers

This will shuffle the answer prompts within the question

Attempts Allowed

Use this option to set the number of times a student can take a quiz. You can set it to unlimited times or a number from 1-6.

Each Attempt Builds in the last

If you allow multiple attempts, you can choose to let students build their answers over time. If you set this to “Yes”, the student’s responses from the last attempt will be visible to them the next time they try to take the quiz.

Grading Method

If you allow multiple attempts, you can choose which score is recorded. You choices are highest grade, average grade, first attempt and last attempt

Apply penalties

As a tutor you can apply penalties on students if they are not able to finish the quiz within the time frame.

Student may review

This option will allow students to review past quizzes after they have submitted them for grading and seen the feedback.

When you create the quiz body, you are creating a container for the questions, and also setting the rules for interacting with the quiz.

To create a quiz body:

1.      Turn Editing On

2.      Select Quiz from the add menu in the content section where you want to place the link to a quiz

3.        In the Quiz editing page, we will call the first quiz “Test your IQ”

4.      Write an introduction for the quiz. Be sure to include any special instructions for taking the quiz like the number of attempts allowed or scoring rules

5.      Choose a quiz opening date and a closing date.

The default starting and ending dates are the same, and are set to time you create the quiz. Be sure to change at least the closing date at some point in the future, since students won’t be able to take the quiz at all.

6.      Choose the options you want to use for your quiz.

Quizzes are feedback on performance is a critical part of a learning environment and assessment is one of the most important activities in education. As educators, we can’t tell what’s going on inside the heads of students, so we need a way for them to demonstrate what they understand and what they don’t. A well-designed test, even a multiple-choice test, can give you critical information about student performance. If the feedback is rapid enough, it can also be a critical tool for students to gauge their own performance and help them become more successful.

e-LMS provide quiz module to understand the what the students have gained or learnt during the sessions. You can create quizzes with different question types, randomly generated quizzes from pools of questions, allow students to retake quizzes multiple times, and have the computer score it all.