--On 02 January 2003 08:59 +1100 Carol Avis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
There is a VERY narrow number of vendors of corporate CMS which manage both e-learning and corporate content. (ANY who are out there reading this PLEASE come forward if you really DO manage both and integrate with LMS applications!). We have elected to examine An Australia product which appears to have incredible potential. The australian DOD have also discovered it, as has Open Learning Australia (a consortium of 7-8 Aussie universities). The company is Harvest Road. Their CMS proportedly will integrate tightly with BlackBoard to create a final product called HIVE that manages both e-learning and corporate. We are about to give it a suite of tests.
I look forward to hearing how you get on. Harvest Road got a mention at a UK Blackboard Users meeting over the summer - by Blackboard staff in answer to a question about why the latest version Blackboard (V6) still lacked a search mechanism or metadata support. "You need a CMS - we partner with Harvest Road". "Oh?", came the reply, "and how much does that cost?". "About the same again as Blackboard ....." was the response. So if you can afford two five-figure investments (and of course that's not the TCO) then Blackboard and Harvest Road may offer a way forward. (But don't you then start asking "Just what is Blackboard giving me that is special?" Nearly all the functionality - apart from student tracking perhaps - can be found elsewhere.) Clearly some institutions do decide that such investments are worthwhile - Northumbria University, I understand, went with Blackboard but, recognising its deficiencies as a content container, also invested in Mediasurface (and used Blackboard Building Blocks to stitch it all together). So a five-figure investment (annual) and a six-figure investment (dunno) can give a "learning content management system". Paul -- The Library, Tyndall Avenue, Univ. of Bristol, Bristol, BS8 1TJ, UK E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] URL: http://www.bris.ac.uk/ -- http://cms-list.org/ a wish for peace in the new year.
