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Survey Results: Impact of Blackboard’s Purchase of Angel
by Karen Liebhaber

Below are the responses to Blackboard survey I sent out on the ARDLA listserv. 

The Respondents 

Fifteen people responded to the survey.  Six of them use Blackboard, five of them use Moodle, two of them use Angel, and the other two use other systems.  Ten respondents represented 2-year institutions, four were from K-12, and one was from a 4-year institution.

The Results

None of the Moodle  or other users felt that Blackboard’s decision to purchase Angel had any impact on their institution’s decision to keep or change their LMS.  Only one said the announcement “reaffirms that we made the right decision for us a couple of years ago.”

One of the Angle users said “We…purchased Angel prior to the buyout by Blackboard. We now are concerned about what changes will be made to Angel.”  The other is “working on negotiating an extension to our contact to cover the three years of ANGEL 7.4 support.   We will evaluate a change if needed at that time based on new contract pricing.”

Two of the Blackboard users are uneffected by the buyout.  A third who said Blackboard’s purchase of Angel did not impact her institution’s decision to keep Blackboard noted that she “wonder[s] if [Blackboard] tech support is going to degrade even further if Bb gets larger.”  One respondent answered “Yes and No.  I’m really getting tired of Bb tech support and their  world dominance is making me want Moodle even more…”  Another respondent’s institution was effected because “we were considering moving to Angel.”  A final respondent who currently uses Blackboard is planning the switch to Moodle.

And Finally…

Fifteen respondents may not seem like many, but I think we’ve had a great start at gathering information from our membership.  If you have a topic you’d like to see as a survey, please contact me. 

About the Author

Karen Powers Liebhaber is the Distance Education Coordinator, Blackboard and Moodle System Administrator, and an instructor of English and literature at Black River Technical College.  She earned a Master of Arts in English from Arkansas State University.  She lives in Pocahontas with her husband and two children.

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