Great questions / observations. First, I don't envision any need for compulsion or duplication in the OLN world. A student wouldn't have to “leave perfectly acceptable solutions” behind–if you built the OLN right, they'd bring them with them. The secure university environment would be maintained for private or proprietary information (class schedules & rosters, grades, licensed content, etc.). The “open” aspect of the OLN would allow for a wide variety of other tools (e.g. Blogger, LinkedIn) to be “integrated” with these closed / secure resources. One possible way this might work is for students & faculty members to have profiles in the OLN which include links to their blogs, Flickr albums, Facebook profiles, etc. Of course a student who doesn't have a blog might be required to create one if instructors create blog-based assignments. But there shouldn't be a requirement for them to use any particular blogging tool.

As for continued commitment to CMSs, there's a balance we have to strike. In the short term, there are two driving influences: (1) a very large and active user base and (2) the economics of supporting multiple CMSs across campus (e.g. hosting, system integration, training, support, etc.). Over time, we need to figure out how to open things up so students and faculty members can use the best tools for the tasks they're trying to accomplish. How we get from here to there is exactly the conversation I'm trying to start on campus. My vision / hope is that we can build an OLN which is flexible enough to accommodate a wide range of applications, services and tools with the same level of reliability and scalability we've become accustomed to.

JM

This is an intriguing concept. I have a couple of questions. First, what is the incentive for the “students” who are already involved in Facebook, blogging, etc. (the other Web 2.0 apps) to migrate to the more rigidly constrained enterprise OLN? I know what a pain it is for us to persuade people to leave perfectly acceptable solutions in favor of the “bigger better deal.” Unless there is something coercive about it, like the usual “course requirement” or “security” excuses, I have difficulty understanding why someone would leave something that is working for them and go to something else – which by itself might be duplicative. Why would I have two Facebook accounts – one for the BYU environment and one for those who aren't “eligible” for inclusion in my BYU community? What is the incentive?

The second question is one that you've probably debated endlessly. What are the reasons that would prevent us from taking advantage of open source CMSs like Sakai or similar programs? Several years ago, Carnegie Mellon coined the phrase “security through obscurity” in reference to their wireless solutions (or so I'm told). In any event, the question arises “How much do we pay in financial, emotional and opportunity costs for the incremental gains in security and functionality that we achieve with Blackboard and similar CMS solutions with their locked/out locked/in approach? This is particularly important when, by your own prediction, (”which I think will be an antiquated concept in 5-10 years)” this kind of solution has a relatively short shelf life – even at BYU. I wonder if we aren't victims of the 80/20 rule. 80% of the cost is giving us that last little bit of 20% functionality. Further, our direction now seems to be toward increasing our commitments to CMS programs even when we know that they will be gone in the relatively near future. Assuming that these systems will soon be gone, it seems that we ought to consider being part of the front runners rather that always coming along to play catch up. We do have the skills already at BYU to be able to think this through and execute this. The END!! Sorry for the meanderings of a deluded mind.