IBM announced today the first open source-based, global, hosted, e-learning service for higher education and K-12 institutions. The IBM Open Education Service: Collaborative Learning Edition is an online environment based on an open source application – one created through the use of freely accessible and distributed programming code. The IBM Open Education Service can be accessed via the Internet and across classroom and institutional boundaries, enabling true collaboration among educators, students and the larger community.
“Educators want new and innovative ways to improve the educational experience and expand access to learning,” said Michael D. King, director, IBM Global Education. “The Open Education Service is built on the Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment, an e-learning platform developed by educators for educators. Sakai is currently intended for higher education institutions, so we are also working with the education community to apply the Sakai platform to the needs of K-12 education.”
The release of the service is an expansion of a 2005 pilot program with The Executive Leadership Council™, the nation’s premier leadership organization of the most senior African American corporate executives in Fortune 500 companies. IBM worked with The ELC and The Executive Leadership Foundation™ to help historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) better use a Collaborative Learning Environment (CLE) to improve cross-disciplinary and cross-institutional collaboration among the 11 participating institutions. In addition to supplying a hosted application supported by a 24 x 7 help desk, IBM provided training sessions, best practices and tools to optimize CLE usage for these institutions. The partnership between The ELC and IBM enabled participating institutions to infuse cutting-edge technology into new and existing curricula as well as research projects.
The IBM Open Education Service: Collaborative Learning Edition is expanding the adoption of Sakai by incorporating supporting solutions from IBM partners The rSmart Group and HarvestRoad. The complete solution allows instructors to create Web sites that include curricular materials, syllabuses, assignments, tests and other online features. In addition to accessing common learning tools, students and instructors can also use features such as calendar, chat, discussion forums, wikis, resource folders, announcements, and e-mail notification to facilitate collaboration and communication. For instance, the tools may be used to create project sites for collaboration on content development, student projects or faculty research—within or between institutions.
“Students today expect interactive, collaborative learning environments,” said Charles Severance, executive director of the Sakai Foundation. “And it’s not just younger generations who have grown up online. It’s also the 40 percent of undergraduates over the age of 24 who need alternatives to traditional classroom environments. Commitments like IBM’s to spreading the adoption of Sakai will help make online learning available to more people.”
To use the IBM Open Education Service, clients pay a low, per student, per year fee and need only an Internet connection, eliminating the need for costly technology infrastructure. Support, maintenance and updates are part of the service. The IBM Open Education Service: Collaborative Learning Edition is hosted on IBM BladeCenter® hardware housed at IBM centers, and includes storage and backup services as well as 24x7 end-user support. Hosting provides a reliable infrastructure for all users and makes the system easily accessible on the Web, from a variety of browsers. A designated IBM contact works with each school system or college to ensure customer satisfaction. Online training is available to faculty to encourage effective use of the service.
“Budget crunches, changing demographics and increasing pressure to improve student performance are just a few of the challenges educators are considering when they make technology decisions,” said IBM’s King. “In order to achieve the innovation needed to meet those challenges, IBM believes the market needs a long-term approach to enhancing technology interoperability, reducing technology cost, and managing change. We believe widespread adoption of open technologies will set the stage for all of that.”
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BM and Partners Working to Expand Adoption of Open Technologies in Education
The IBM Open Education Service: Collaborative Learning Edition includes components from two IBM Business Partners: the rSmart Group’s Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment (CLE), the first commercial distribution of Sakai, and the HarvestRoad Hive®, a learning object repository for storing and managing e-learning content. The HarvestRoad Hive is the first product certified as conforming to the standards of the IMS Global Learning Consortium, a global, nonprofit organization that leads and supports community development of standards.
"The future of software is based on open applications, such as Sakai, integrated into comprehensive and supported application stacks," said Chris Coppola, president of rSmart. "The partnership between rSmart and IBM delivers to customers an end-to-end on-demand solution to deliver e-Learning solutions.”
“Our software supports the philosophy of the IBM Open Education Roadmap, which focuses on interoperability between systems and solutions to foster consumer choice,” said Grame Barty, CEO, HarvestRoad. “A leading requirement going forward is the necessity to capture and manage intellectual capital at the granular object level. HarvestRoad Hive® is one of the world’s leading learning object repository applications and its selection as part of IBM’s market offering and strategy is a vindication of our efforts to create software that meets the next generation of requirements for education delivery services.”
The IBM Open Education Service: Collaborative Learning Edition is the first offering in the IBM Open Education Roadmap, for clients who want to manage change and improve interoperability over the long term. The IBM Open Education Roadmap is a step-by-step vision, based on open principles, to help educational institutions create a service oriented architecture aligned with their business processes and allowing for a blend of applications and services. Customers interested in adopting the IBM Open Education Roadmap can work with IBM to access its full network of resources -- including all of IBM’s education-industry services and software as well as its broader network of partners in the education industry.
IBM is a long-time supporter and advocate of efforts to expand the adoption of open technologies – open standards, open source software and open hardware – in both K-12 and higher education. The company is: a co-sponsor of the K-12 Open Technologies Initiative of the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN); a Contributing Member of IMS and member of several IMS working groups; an advocate of the e-Framework Initiative; a Commercial Affiliate of and contributor to Sakai, and a commercial affiliate of Kuali, a consortium for developing an open system of financial management for higher education institutions. For more information about IBM’s support of open technologies in education, visit
www.ibm.com/education/open.
About IBM
IBM, the world’s largest consulting, services and information technology company, helps improve education throughout the world. For more than 80 years, IBM people and solutions have been helping schools and institutions of higher education innovate for greater achievement, productivity and accountability. Working with business partners, IBM draws on its world-class portfolio of services, software and hardware solutions to help clients realize the full potential of their technology investments. For information about IBM’s solutions and experience in education, please visit:
www.ibm.com/education.
