Does anyone have recent info (2010 / 2011) about the pricing of Blackboard and/or other commercial solutions for a school of 16 to 18 year olds with for example 300 students?
All are very "secretive" and it's hard to get current estimates. It would also be valuable to know if those prices are for schools self-hosting (just paying for the license) or if it is for an all-included-hosting-solution, where Blackboard/x host and maintan the site.
My college used to buy hosting from Blackboard, and all I know is that it was really, really expensive - in the hundreds of thousands of US dollars (will depend on the size of your installation, concurrent users, etc). There were all kinds of "lock-in" stipulations, so I'd be very careful that you understand what you're buying before you sign on the dotted line.
When we were looking at renewing, a senior official from Blackboard gave a presentation, after which he was asked, "How many programmers do you have working on Blackboard?" His answer: "I can't tell you that." Like it's some kind of trade secret! The good thing was that his competitors were all very forthcoming, and one of them was selected. So transparency is important, which is one thing I've always admired about Moodle.
The issue is not about proprietal software or Open Source, it is increasingly about the Western Price Model. How long can we continue to afford it? In some ways, proprietal software can be a lot better than Open Source, but the gap has narrowed considerably in recent times, and in some cases, Open Source has outstripped its traditional rival.
The one area where many Open Source apps do not fare as well as proprietal, I must admit, is in the area of security. Fortunately, Moodle does better than its competitors in that security issues are recognised and responded to on a more frequent basis than poprietal software can afford to achieve. And this could be true for more Open Source projects.
There is also the considerations made by a couple of institutes, links can be found in this discussion:
"The one area where many Open Source apps do not fare as well as proprietal, I must admit, is in the area of security."
On what basis do you say that? This is an interesting debate, but generally Open source projects have very robust security processes. Wikipedia has a good summary of the security pros and cons of Open source, and Googling "Open source security" gets you some interesting articles.
On what basis do you say that?
One, personal experience. Admittedly a while ago, but when involved in testing two products, both open source, the organization I was working for discarded them on the basis of security, they got hacked actually - not by me, but I found one of the hacks, it was deliberate from within the organization precisely for that reason. Did not know anything about the other, but heard the same sort of hack could be applied. The organization went to a commerical product and claimed there was never an issue with security, and I have not heard differently.
Two, I mentioned a particular PHP-App, an SMS actually, in a forum here and was immediately bashed around the head and shoulders by one of our New Zealand friends as the product I mentioned had security holes you could drive a truck through, and he recommended fixes to the manufacturer, but they had not been implemented at the time of writing. I didn't mind, really, learned something new and I have to bow to his far greater expertise. I also seem to recall one of our OU friends making similar comments about another product that was mentioned here in a discussion of interest to me at the time..
I may no longer be as in touch with these things as I was, but the point is the same, many Open Source products do not seem to pay as much attention to security as they could. I no longer have the skills to hack anything, not that I was ever any big fan of, or skilled at, hacking, but I am still very much aware of the damage and/or embarrassment that it can cause.
And in my own defence, I also said: "Moodle does better than its competitors in that security issues are recognised and responded to on a more frequent basis than poprietal software can afford to achieve. And this could be true for more Open Source projects..."
Security of any program is an issue, and I suspect a lot of the commerical software products emanating from the Dark Side are a lot larger than they need to be because of poor security, (read ordinary programming practice) that has been patched and repatched and re-repatched and then patched again.
Hehe - no bashing was intended!
I guess one thing to point out is that open source products 'advertise' their security issues by publicizing their source code and that can in fact result in a more secure product(sometimes). It usually depends on the maturity and management of the product.
Commercial products can sometimes benefit with 'security by obscurity' and malicious users find exploits using other means. But this can also mean security issues aren't taken as seriously by the development team(until a public breach occurs)
Security begins at home.
What are some of the invisible issues:
Hosting platforms. Shared hosting, windows or linux, doesn't matter. Huge issues there, doesn't matter if your software is locked down tighter than fort knox.
Using opensource on a Windows environment when it is not designed to do so with the same level of assurance as an apache.
The introduction of 3rd party components on top of a stable secure opensource installation. Opens all kinds of doors that bypasses the security of the source code.
Non-technical users developing entire platforms because they have scripts that install enormously powerful opensource software by merely clicking on an icon and inserting the name of their dog and birthday as a password at root.
Later, issues like going back inside these programs to chown [CHangeOWNership] and/or CHMOD [CHangeMODe] the most vulnerable files to scripts and injections, often get put's on the backburner. It's like we put automatic shift in the Space shuttle so anyone and everyone can drive. This is great in terms of access, but obviously the learningbegins, doesn't stop, when the basic installation is done. We must stay on top of all the post installation requirements to keep the software free from hackers etc.
Not upgrading software. Not upgrading community built addons, not using linux based best practices. Owning ONE dog. These are more important than open source vs. proprietary. IMHO.
It's all good learnin', Dan..
And that is an interesting perception Jamie, and not one I had considered before, but then I have had no reason to. I might administer a Moodle, but they refuse to let me near a system..for good reason I suspect .
I am sure that an issue will arise where someone will ask me a question about this sort of thing, and if I am quick enough, I will keep your comments in mind. Thanks for that.
Hi Visvanath:
Basically, what I think the point is, is that shared hosting is fatal. So what are the alternatives: VPS (administered or not) or Dedicated Servers.
Most often the affordable solution is a VPS. As soon as Moodle admins enter the world of VPS they become aware that the world is NOT a CMS based world with a superadmin vs teachers, vs. students. They need to follow carefully the best practices of their *nix distribution.
Without going into technical stuff (and I am no expert here either). One thing stands out in VPS hosting situation with non-experts: using ROOT to do all the work. Configuring your platforms, for ease of memory, at root. In windows we do not have this problem. Altough even windows server tells us its best to create a SECOND admin user and not allow admin to login from remote sites. The entire configuration, assigning of user and group rights, and RW options in a linux distribution requires a level of commitment to understanding the how and why.
It's true, then that it is easier to run under Cpanel on a shared hosting. But like I said, Security begins at HOME, and by this I mean you take over the layer of security at root user, at root web, and home page. This way the core opensource CMS will function properly, and without security risks. The opensource CMS community of programmers take it as a given that your installation is LOCKED DOWN secure beneath the web.
I don't have much experience with hackers on moodle sites, but I know that the Joomla CMS, for example, is extremely stable, hackers get into those sites by finding weaknesses in the hosting system configuration, not in the core of Joomla, or they enter through 3rd party templates, components, and modules by taking advantage of their weaknesses in security.
"...one man's critical security issue may be of no concern whatever to somebody else"
Howard, that is like saying "I use Windows".. I do understand that my security issues are of absolutely no concern to Microsoft
However, I think it is a bit deeper than "My experience is that "It's not secure" is just another way of saying "we don't want to use that"."
In a lot of cases the essential suspicion is that "if you don't pay a lot of money for something, then just how valuable is it?" The idea of someone "giving" you something valuable scares the hell out of accountants, well it does all the accountant types I have ever dealt with. My thought is that the concept of Open Source is so alien to a lot of managers and their understanding of the Western Price Model that it has to be "communist" or "terrorist" or some other "..ist" or "...ism". I suspect fear is the key. I have challenged that fear and have had a small measure of success - but it has been a real stretch. Now all I have to do is convince people who make the decisions with little or no real understanding of the technologies to not spend a lot of money unneccessarily.
I would like to think you are right Howard, but I live in a country where the horseless carriage is seen as wild innovation in some areas. I would agree there appears a high degree of intellectual laziness amongst IT pros, but there is also behavioural modification processes used in the "certification" of Network Professionals which is obvious, but never spoken of and always denied, but which is which? Are they really lazy or just patterned to perceive things with a lens exclusively provided by the Dark Side.
These are the people who are advising the managers, who mostly have no real idea anyway. While it is getting better, most of my current managers are good tech users, still many are not, but they do not understand it. They barely scratch the surface of what they use, can insert text into a word document, can copy files to a USB, and that makes them "experts". I say things and get blank stares, no matter how simply I explain things - they do not get it. As far as my career prospects are concerned, what is a career?
Appalling, isn't it.. and I bet you have a better understanding of the gamut of IT concepts than most accredited "professionals". One problem I have is there are too many people who genuinely believe that if you have that bit of paper, it actually means something.. And they are just the people who make decisions, so no wonder they are getting it wrong. If you want an excellent and detailed, but really depressing, explanation of this sort of thing, read John Ralston Saul, a rewarding experience, especially "Voltaire's Bastards" and "The Unconcious Civilization".
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Ha!! I know exactly what you mean... There was an article in an extremely obscure publication here years ago by someone who worked for that same organization, if we are talking about the one that taps phones, called "Two years before the masthead". Obviously a play on words on the Richard Dana Jr's 1840 book about the appalling conditions common sailors worked under. Reading that article, it reminded me of J.K Galbraith's post-war comments on how the administration of Nazi Germany was so convoluted and administratively poor that it is a wonder they actually managed to wage war at all. I suspect the same obsessive and unfocussed style has grown due to the same kind of workplace sociopaths occupying important positions within such oprganizations. If you look at Robert McNamara's "Fog of War" you can see the beginning of that style of (dis)organization in the West from the 1960s. A prime example of that is seen with Dick Fuld's running of Lehman Brothers, and I am definitely of the view that we have yet to see a peak of collapses due to this style of (mis)management.
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From what I have seen of Blackboard, my impression is that they do not have any full-time programmers. My guess is that they contract out their programming. I say this because some "improvements" look completely different than what they had before. Blackboard seems to be a product designed by programmers, not by teachers. I know that my comments may seem a little harsh, but this was my impression after using Blackboard for five years, and still watching this product mature for another five years.
That's interesting, Rick - I hadn't even considered they might use a completely outsourced model, which would explain the official's reticence ("How bad would it look if I told them we have NONE of our own programmers?!"). Your point about judging the actual product is a good one to remember, though even a very well-designed corporate CMS like Desire2Learn has some design glitches - like putting the buttons for similar routines in different places (probably two different programmers).
This is pure speculation. Blackboard does employ software developers.
Oh, Tim, how do you know? Have you been head hunted?
Cheers,
Glenys
Yes, pure speculation.
I wonder if Blackboard sofware developers talk to each other.
I knew if I looked enough I would find this blog by one Colin Matheson. A very interesting perspective, and looks to be a reasonable attempt to look at Blackboard with facts and figures provided by Blackboard's public statements.
I can't add much more than my blog post says, but since I wrote that post I have to say my opinion is still firmly for giving open source a serious look before going proprietary. Sadly the effect of the large marketing departments of closed source companies is to make opensource projects like Moodle appear second class in many people's minds.
Chalk another one up for IBM's marketing strategies, Colin? Disinformation is as important a marketing tool as is the glossy photographs. As long as it is subtle and these people are getting very good at subtle.
though even a very well-designed corporate CMS like Desire2Learn has some design glitches - like putting the buttons for similar routines in different places (probably two different programmers.
LOL! you obviously have never had to teach 1200 students per semester with D2L..... People gripe about Moodle bugs, heh, they've never had to deal with the crap on D2L.
While WebCT was innovative at the time, it was also severly limited. My first encounter with the "next killer app" was not an impressive beginning, it crashed, then it crashed again. It still crashes every now and again. Learning groups can be very helpful, but they can also be a nightmare when it crashes.
For me, and all I have ever advocated has been the standard Moodle install plus the Book module. I have not experienced too many of the bugs that people are complaining about. I certainly get annoyed at some of the limitations of Moodle, in an area which Mauno K has improved dramtically and is still working on to improve, but it is a product in development and I cannot have everything I want. My production sites do not crash because I don't play around trying to "improve" the code, or constantly fiddle with settings, or add in new "you beaut" blocks or filters, or change themes every week. That is what I do to my test Moodles and I do not do anything to my production sites without extensive testing first and even then I don't often change things unless it is needed by the client.
So the bugs, for me, are more like small annoyances than showstoppers, but neither of my sites are very big, small concerns with a few dozen clients each. Their Moodles are just as important to my clients as is the OU's with over 1/4 million clients, their Moodles needs to work. My stakeholders cannot afford a proprietal tool, particularly one that is constantly breaking and they are very happy with Moodle.
I am in a similar situation and feel exactly the same way. I too see some of the problems that people have, and I have not experienced these because I too run a very standard Moodle and a standard platform. I have seen some great work of some folks who have modified Moodle, but they seem to know what they are doing. My Moodle installation has never crashed, but there have been a few times that my hosting server had a problem. I can count 4 or 5 times in six years, not bad. I too run a small site.
Since no one answered, I will. Our school called Blackboard a couple of years ago. The per seat license for a high school was around $1200 US per student per year for a class of students less than 30.
So each year we'd have to pony up $36,000 a year to renew a blackboard license for a class of 30 students!
ouch!
Sounds like a story from the hell...
I can share JoomlaLMS prices with you. Suppose you have 30 students as Jeremy W: The cheapest license is $299 per year and it includes 100 seats (you can't buy less seats). And it will be $10 per seat per year if you buy this license for 30 students. They also keep public prices for their additional services and products - http://www.joomlalms.com/buy_now/. Custom development service price is the only unpublicized. They say it depends on difficulty of the work to be done. I asked to customize a templete and it costed about $700.
They also provide perpetual JoomlaLMS license. It never expires and code is open. This license for 100 users costs $1196 ($39.9 per seat if you have 30 students).
We looked at this last year for Bb. Prices vary by your FTE count. ~$8.00 per FTE/year for less than 10,000 seems to be accurate. We noticed one campus had over 100,000 fte's and they were paying around $5.00 We've also heard of others who have had substantial discounts when Bb learned that Moodle was running at the same time on their campus.
