More on the ANGEL Buyout

Department of Justice Complaint Line

An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education dated May 11, 2009 (http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=3764), concludes with this paragraph:

Matthew Small, Blackboard’s chief business officer, said Blackboard’s acquisition of Angel Learning was too small a transaction to trigger an automatic review by the department. When Blackboard purchased a larger rival, WebCT, in 2005, the deal was large enough to spark a routine review by Justice Department officials before the sale officially closed, he said. “I don’t think that there’s any anti-trust concern with this combination,” said Mr. Small.

Jim McWard, professor of English, contacted the Department of Justice to voice his concerns and was given a fax number for filing a formal citizen's complaint against the merger: 202-514-1629 (fax number for Citizen's Complaint at DOJ.)

This is clearly one avenue for expressing concern and I've also faxed a citizen's complaint to the DOJ. I hope faculty and staff from other colleges that have recently switched to ANGEL (see http://angeliclearning.blogspot.com/2009/05/flight-from-blackboard-to-angel-and.html) will join in this grassroots effort for a government review.

Institutional Action

At JCCC, the Educational Technology Center working in conjunction with our ANGEL Implementation Project Team and the Distance Learning Coordinating Council also plan the following actions:

1. We’ll carefully monitor ANGEL technical support to be sure it is responsive and avoids the pitfalls that occurred after the Blackboard/WebCT merger. ANGEL support has been timely and accurate to date. Blackboard at the conference indicated that the ANGEL support center will remain in Indianapolis. If they start requiring tech support personnel to move to DC, like they did with WebCT staffers who lived in Vancouver, BC, we’ll know they haven’t learned any lessons.
2. We’ll watch for further development of the ANGEL platform. ANGEL traditionally offers a yearly “dot” release or upgrade with fixes every other month. If we see a variation on that pattern, we’ll suspect that Blackboard is walking away from the ANGEL platform.
3. We’ll also monitor any changes in the pricing structure. Blackboard has a tradition of charging addition fees for features that are covered by ANGEL’s basic license.
4. If (when) Blackboard merges ANGEL into Blackboard’s NG (Next Generation) tool we’ll have to carefully evaluate migration tools available as well as the design and features of the new product. Blackboard has traditionally been a tools based product while ANGEL is more content (lessons) oriented. For the majority of our faculty who have made the transition, the latter approach seems to better meet their instructional needs. If the NG product is a dramatic shift from ANGEL and a major transition is imminent for our faculty anyway, then we’ll explore all LMS options before assuming we’ll move to NG.
5. Finally, we’ll keep our eyes and ears open over the coming couple of years to see what other options are available should Blackboard take ANGEL in an undesired direction. We’ll keep an eye on the marketplace including open source products.