7. Course Management Systems are Dead! Long Live Course Management Systems! Proprietary course management systems are heading for a brick wall. The combination of economic pressures combined with saturated markets and the maturing stage of the life cycle of these once innovative platforms means that 2009 may well be the year of change or a year of serious planning for change. Relatively inexpensive and feature-comparable open source alternatives combined with some now learned experience in the process of transition from closed to open systems for the inventory of repeating courses makes real change in this once bedrock of education technology a growing possibility. As product managers and management view these trend lines, I think we might see incumbent players make a valiant effort to re-invent themselves before the market drops out from underneath them. Look for the number of major campuses moving (or making serious threats to move) from closed systems to open ones to climb in the year ahead.

It is true the big player in proprietary CMS / LMS / VLE software has lagged in innovation for quite a while. Remember though Blackboard bought WebCT and kept around the other product while hemorrhaging former WebCT employees. That alone kept them extremely busy not to lose every customer they bought. The next version, Blackboard 9 should be available soon. That is the litmus test for their future success.

Bb9 is a newer version of Academic Suite, aka Classic. There is no direct upgrade path from CE / Vista to Bb9. There is a Co-Production upgrade path where one can run both versions side-by-side with a portal interface to access either version without having to login again. Content still has to be extracted from the old and placed in the new. (Since we are running Vista 3 and Vista 8 side-by-side now, this doedsn’t give me warm fuzzies.) This was the upgrade path some WebCT and Blackboard clients took getting from Vista 3 to 4 only to find Vista 4 was junkware. Similarly, those leaving CE4 for CE6 were frustrated by the move. So, I would predict:

1. Those on Classic 8 now will go to Blackboard 9 ASAP.
2. Smaller colleges on CE 8 who through turnover no longer have the people burned by the CE4->CE6 migration will probably move to Blackboard 9 this summer prior to Fall.
3. Smaller colleges on CE 8 who still remember will migrate after AP1 (maybe a year after Bb9 release).
4. Larger colleges on CE or Vista 8 will move some time between AP1 and AP2.
5. Consortia groups like GeorgiaVIEW, Utah State System, or Connecticut State University System will wait and see.

That last group doesn’t take change easily. They have the nimbleness of a Supertanker cargo ship.

I am still waiting for the tweets about Moodle and Sakai, the open source alternatives, to change from in general “X sucks, but at least its not Blackboard.” to “X is the best there is.” If “at least its not Blackboard” is the only thing going for the software, then people will stay where they are to see where things go. There needs to be compelling reasons to change.

Unfortunately the cries of the students and the faculty in the minority are not enough. Most people are happy enough. They can accomplish the important things. They get frustrated that IT took the system down, data center power issues, network issues, or a performance issue. None of which go away by picking FOSS.

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Useful resolutions to me are things I realistically can and will accomplish applying moderate effort. Making too hard of a challenge will result in giving up too quickly. Making too easy of a challenge will result in doing something I would do anyway. Last year was the first time in a really long time I even bothered other than using 43things to make some goals I rarely have met more by accident than any real intent.

Some resolutions I would pick I already do to the extent I realistically would….

• Take the stairs and walk more. I already do these as far down the exercise more resolution as I realistically will go.
• Eat better. I already mostly avoid red meat and eat lots of green vegetables.
• Spend more time with family.

There are resolutions I would never actually keep without support from family and friends I don’t really have to keep me honest and stick to the narrow path….

• Less fat, less sugar, no soda, no sweet tea.
• Exercise more.
• Finances.
• Organization.
• Less time spent in front of the TV or computer. 
• More blogging.
• I already do not smoke or drink alcohol.
• Get a Master’s Degree.

Hmmmmmm… Resolutions are bad for your health?

I haven’t checked my in a long while.

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So here goes….

Family

Mom went off to Houston in January to consult with one of the best doctors in the country about a health issue. How things fell into place to allow her to get better amazed me daily. I got to grandparent sit for a week where I made Nannie tell stories so I could post them on Youtube.

William married Nicole, his high school sweetheart. I finally have a sister. It rained on us briefly, so if you are into superstitions, that means either: 1) kids, 2) money, or 3) good luck.

I met Dad’s girlfriend, Sally, this year. She is definitely very nice. I’m happy with the match.

Friends

My only New Year’s Resolution for 2008 was to read 25 books this year. I completed that goal back in October. I’m thinking for 2008 to do a similar resolution. This time I’ll count up the number of pages and set a goal to read 20% more pages. 

Some fellow Flickr users started an Athens Flickr Meetup. I’m hoping this is something to continue in 2009 as the weather improves. (Though who knew Georgia would be 20 degrees Farenheit above normal in December?)

Adrianne and Britt asked me to be the photographer for their wedding. I spent hours looking at professional photographer portfolios for ideas about what I should capture. You see, while I do have a camera, I had never really taken photos at a wedding. Heck, few people invite me to weddings, so I was a little unclear what happens. In the end, I think it all turned out pretty well. Adrianne is happy. So I am happy. Working in computers became a profession because it was a hobby. Maybe photography will end up the same in the end? Posted 840 photos to Flickr this year. Started freelovephotography.com to show off my photography.

Las Vegas in July? Dumb. Star Trek: The Experience made my geeky heart soar.
NCC-1701-D @ ST: TXP

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• Email - Like Skinner’s pigeons, we hit the button to check for new messages hoping to get something. The intermittent reinforcement of not getting a new message with every click just helps strengthen the behavior.
• Twitter - Similar to email, click the button and hope for something good.

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case TAG_SHUTTERSPEED:
  // More complicated way of expressing exposure time, so only use
  // this value if we don’t already have it from somewhere else.
  if ($this->ImageInfo[TAG_EXPOSURETIME] == 0){
    $sp = $this->ConvertAnyFormat($ValuePtr, $Format);
    // Temporary Workaround for divizion by zero problem
      if (!empty($sp[0])) {
        $this->ImageInfo[TAG_SHUTTERSPEED] = (1/exp($sp[0]*log(2)));
      } else {
        $this->ImageInfo[TAG_SHUTTERSPEED] = 0;
      }
    }
    break;

Looks like YAPB is attempting to create a value if one doesn’t exist for TAG_EXPOSURETIME by inventing a new value. In my problem picture, the exposure time is 0.003 seconds which != 0. So why is the ($this->ImageInfo[TAG_EXPOSURETIME] == 0) condition evaluated as true? 

Interestingly, just prior to this is some code dealing with TAG_EXPOSURETIME which seems to be affecting this. Changing the 0.5 to 0.0005 (less than my current value removes the problem.

case TAG_EXPOSURETIME:
  // Simplest way of expressing exposure time, so I trust it most.
  // (overwrite previously computd value if there is one)
  $tmp = $this->ConvertAnyFormat($ValuePtr, $Format);
  $this->ImageInfo['h']["exposureTime"] = sprintf(”%6.4f s (%d/%d)”,(double)$tmp[0],$tmp[1][0],$tmp[1][1]);
  if ($tmp[0] <= 0.5){
    $this->ImageInfo['h']["exposureTime"] .= sprintf(” (1/%d)”,(int)(0.5 + 1/$tmp[0]));
  }
  break;

With this conditional, the exposure time is “0.003 s (1/400) (1/400)” without “0.003 s (1/400)”. Didn’t see a reason to have it twice, so I’ve dropped it.

Also, I figure it would be better to call ImageInfo['h']["exposureTime"] instead of ImageInfo[TAG_EXPOSURETIME]. With this change, it seems to have resolved the issue for me.

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1. search.twitter.com for ”Athens GA”  - results are full of people talking about Athens, GA not in Athens, GA. Useful for people coming into town for an event.
2. TweetLocal search for “Athens, GA” (or 30605 get same results) within 20 miles - Over the last 24 hours the RSS feed has given me 12 posts. First 5 users in search before 9pm: JeremyAce4 in Athens, GA, justdandelions in athens, ga, bozaf in Néa Smírni, Europe/Athens, aaronbarton in Athens, GA, elbee103 in Athens, GA (last @ 7pm). The hit on Europe/Athens is pretty disappointing.
3. search.twitter.com for ”near:AHN within:20mi” (or 30605 or AthensGA get same results) - Over the same 24 hour period, its RSS feed has given me 53 posts. First 5 users in search before 9pm: ThePicMan, julieteaston, ryan_lafountain, RyanHague, alester (last @ 7pm)

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There are multiple ways we can handle this access:

1. School VIPs - We highly encourage users bookmark, publish links, and access school VIPs instead of the actual address. The idea being these addresses will always go to the right place. Other addresses could change and not work. We even have a v8 version for pre-cutover access and a v3 version for post-cutover access. The problem seems to be some campuses and users continue to use the addesses other than the school VIPs (v8 will only show them the school VIP).
2. Custom login page - We would place an HTML file on the v3 system explaining general access has moved. Some people would need to get past this page and into the v3 system. The questions here are:
   1. Can we just give the admins the link to bypass the custom login page? They could then manage who has access to the site. They might have to provide this “secret” to thousands of students.
   2. Do we dare publish the link on the page? Something like “To check Fall 2008 grades: click here.”
3. Deny access - We would deny access to all users except those who hold the Institution Administrator role in v3. The holders of that role would then be responsible to granting access one-by-one to other users who need to access to this old system.
4. f5 iRule to 302 Redirect - We do host a school who uses autosignon. It is conceivable we could intercept attempts to login and redirect them to the correct host. It would be much better for them just to use the School VIPs solution.

Anyone have a better solution?

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Enter Georgia Senator Seth Harp who suggests a couple HBCUs in Georgia should merge with their neutral neighbors. The idea is to save money by not having more than one college in a town. Are black students as successful at “neutral” colleges as their white counterparts? If not, then the reason these schools exist has yet to be solved.

If we want to eliminate HBCUs, then we should have colleges and unviersities where all students succeed regardless of race (or gender, religion, or other factors).

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Open-source code is generally great code, not requiring much support. So open-source companies that rely on support and service alone are not long for this world. The traditional open-source business model that relies solely on support and service revenue streams is failing to meet the expectations of investors.

The whole point is to have a model producing great code. As these open source companies try to be everything to everyone, they eventually hit the same issue as proprietary companies: Bloatware. The software starts to suck and the users abandon the ship for another product which seems to do the same job better.

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Curious, I went looking for a possible problem between reCAPTCHA and Chrome. According to a post there, the Transitional XHTML DOCTYPE is the cause. Changing that DOCTYPE to Strict ought to fix the issue. Given the audience, I doubt there is anyone else using Chrome to fill it. So fixing it probably isn’t worth it to them.

Interesting. I’ll have to look into issues with Chrome and the XHTML Transitional DOCTYPE.

Technorati : Chrome, reCAPTCHA, web design
Del.icio.us : Chrome, reCAPTCHA, web design
Flickr : Chrome, reCAPTCHA, web design

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Technorati : Thanksgiving Day, thanks
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If you could inhabit the body of any famous person for one week, who would you choose and why?

The intent probably is more to have someone else’s life. However, the way the question is stated, I really would not get to have that person’s life… Just be in that body. I am me. They are they. Their life is based on their responses to their environment. My responses to their environment will be different.  Let’s say I pick a Nobel Laureate. Now I have these completely foreign responsibilities I know nothing about handling. Unless I pick someone with a similar life to mine (no fun), inhabiting anyone else’s body would be a nightmare not a dream. 

Yeah, I am overthinking the question. 

Probably this is because I cannot think of another life I would really like to live other than my own for a week. I like it. It is mine.

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1. SMART (Section Migration Archive and Restore Tool) created for us by the Georgia Digital Innovation Group seemed well received. I’m glad. DIG worked tirelessly on it on an absurdly short schedule.
2. Information is strewn about in too many places. There isn’t one place to go for information. Instead between Blackboard, VistaSWAT, and GeorgiaVIEW about 29. I amazed I do find information.
3. Blackboard NG 9 is too tempting for some.
4. Vista does DTD valdiation but not very well. We need to XML validation before our XML files are run. As we do not control the source of these files and errors by those creating the files cause problems, we run them in test before running in production. I am thinking of something along the lines of validating the file and finding the errors and reporting to the submitter the problems in the file. Also, it should do XML schema validation so we can ensure the data is as correct as possible before we load it.

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A unit of type Institution cannot have a unit of type Campus as a child.

Guess being on vacation last week spaced my neurons. Normally, I ignore Blackboard errors as meaningless. This time I listened to the error and sent myself off in the wrong direction trying to figure out what was wrong with the typevalue element of the XML was wrong. Typevalue defines the level of the context. So while my level was set to 30 in the XML, for some reason it must be ignoring it, right?

Wrong! The problem was really that the relationship.sourcedid.source was set to “DBA IMS IMPORT USG_COL” instead of “DBA SIAPI Import USG_COL”. So it was unable to find the parent object. So the error makes no sense to me now.

Can I have my two hours back?

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Why did you do it, Flickr? Why?

Originally uploaded by issuez

Changes to the Flickr home page and Facebook’s overall UI were intended to make them more streamlined.

So why is there a vocal rejection of these UI changes? Well, management is focused on attracting new users. In their minds, the people using the system are hooked and going to stay. Word of mouth is how I see these new users getting added. Upset customers don’t recommend a company to their friends.

tag: photography

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Checking me out

Originally uploaded by Ezra F

By this point she realized I wasn’t going to eat her. So she wasn’t trying to scurry away from the lens. Maybe I’ll name her “Liz”.

tag: photography

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Our digital footprints both could be part of this legacy or easily lost. I lean toward all this data we spew about the Internet will be lost eventually. I have seen floppy disks and hard drives die, taking with them the only copy of critical data. I have seen companies report their hard drives stolen from their machines in co-location as why customers lost their data. I have seen companies close web sites because they ran out of money. Let’s not forget natural disasters like earthquakes and floods.

So we keep backups.

Who will preserve these backups once we are gone? Are you able to read the data from computers 40 years ago? Maybe we’ll be better about being able to read the data from past when we reach 40 years into the future?

Not likely.

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Apparently there are lots of car accidents on Election Day? I’ll hopefully be teleworking that day.

I turned down an offer to work a web site called Real World Painting. The kid doing the web site let it get suspended (back up now). So the owner wanted my advice. He really needs the most help with search engine optimization. He’s interested in reading up on it. Anyone have suggestions? 

A friend has turned up with lymphoma. So I will probably set up a web site to accept donations to help this family with the expenses.

Been talking with Mom about the economy. I did a quick calculation. Add $700 billion to the $10.3 trillion national debt to get $11 trillion. The employed U.S. work force is about 145,255,000. That puts the burden of this debt at 75,728.89 per worker. Add in those on employment or not in the labor force to get 234 million people. We share a $46,936.33 burden. Last I did this calculation it was only around $30 thousand.

That is enough for now.

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Provide successful workarounds or bug fixes to the identified issues in a timely manner. A timely manner means within 5 days to the user and 180 days to me. By the end of 5 days, the affected users have given up on ever getting a solution. We know we have lost that user ever giving us the benefit of the doubt about our service again. We only keep the ticket open in hopes of preventing the same issue from happening to another user and losing them as well.

All you other Blackboard customers out there. What did you put here? Or any of the other freeform answers. If you didn’t get to do the survey, then what would you have liked to put there?

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Pyyhkala, 36, of Boston, said he has read the book and seen parts of the film. He said his grievances stem from the film’s potential to sway public attitude about blindness. He said the movie exacerbates stereotypes and gives false information to uninformed viewers. [Link] (Since starting this post now requires a login?)

I haven’t seen the film or read the book, but the trailer for the films shows the people being put into quarrantine for a medical epidemic where people go blind. Stories generally portray people as acting incompetent and fearful when they are trapped in an unfamiliar situation. The whole point is to create an environment whereby a person, the hero or heroine, who is the bright light of reason and to whom everyone else appeals can rise to the challenge.

Blindness happens to use people who are blind, most likely because a the author was trying to be creative and use something readers would find new. Jose Saramago: ”Stupidity doesn’t choose between the blind and the non-blind.” [Link]

Chris Danielsen, a national federation spokesman, said while he understands that the film plays on the public’s fear of sudden blindness, the idea that loss of sight is equal to incompetence and immorality is “outrageous” and “vicious.” Everyday tasks like getting dressed and using the bathroom do not become impossible if a person loses their sight, Danielsen said.

Works of fiction do not depict reality. Otherwise… they would not be fiction. Stop giving movies more meaning than they actually have. Otherwise, you give them power they didn’t already have.

The Catholic Church’s opposition to the Golden Compass made me read the book and go see the movie (latter was awful). I wouldn’t have cared otherwise. Denouncing it made me wonder what they had to fear from something so silly as a book and movie. After seeing the trailer, I wasn’t interested in Blindness. After reading about the opposition, I am interested. I don’t have much luck with movies from books lately, so I may go book first.

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