Life After the Death of Angel Learning Management System

When an LMS Dies…

The Angel learning management system, after cheating death once, will officially retire in October 2016. Before then, hundreds of institutions will have to search for a new provider.

The death of a major learning management system is not an everyday event. In the day-to-day battle for market share, providers make gains by peeling off customers from their competitors, outmaneuvering other suitors when a college or university looks to makes a once-in-a-decade shift. U.S. higher education is considered a saturated market, and as one of those systems now leaves the space, it creates an opportunity for providers to scoop up new clients — and headache for the colleges and universities urged to migrate.

“This is potentially a big deal, because it’s one of those structural changes in the market that creates disruption,” said Kenneth C. (Casey) Green, whose Campus Computing Project tracks higher education IT trends, including changes in the learning management system market. “It creates a great opportunity for other providers to say, look, you’ve got an up-or-out decision here.”

Angel Learning’s death has long been foreshadowed. Blackboard acquired the company in 2009, and then gave the system five years to live. This month, Blackboard said, Angel would move to “end-of-life” status, meaning the company would no longer maintain the system or develop new features.

In 2012, Blackboard reversed earlier plans, saying it would continue to support Angel “indefinitely.” The company described its new strategy as one that involved multiple learning management systems, from its flagship product, Learn, to the open-source Moodle.

Then, earlier this month, Blackboard reversed again. Come Oct. 15, 2016, the colleges and universities still running Angel will be on their own, though Blackboard will still offer “limited, situational support,” it told Pennsylvania State University.

“The official answer is that there are third-party technologies that underlie the Angel learning platform that are either at or rapidly approaching their end-of-life from those manufacturers,” said Valerie Schreiner, Blackboard’s vice president of product management. “We would be coming into a position where we couldn’t guarantee a service level to these clients that we were comfortable with. We’ve worked as long as we could.”

The decision lets Blackboard focus on fewer products, but the company still faces a fight to retain its customers. Among the Angel institutions that migrated this spring, Blackboard only captured between one-quarter and one-third, according to data collected by University of Maryland University College enterprise solutions engineer George Kroner.

When Blackboard announced the first end-of-life date for Angel, Penn State formed a committee to look for a replacement system. The committee then put its work on hold — and signed a five-year agreement to keep running Angel through December 2017 — when Blackboard backtracked on the plans. Now, the committee’s work has started back up again, said Terence N. O’Heron, the university’s director of operations in teaching and learning with technology.

The agreement likely means a busy 2017 for Penn State. Although Blackboard will honor the terms of the five-year agreement, it will be up to the university’s IT staffers to identify bugs, report them to Blackboard and then cross their fingers for a fix, O’Heron said.

“We were glad to hear that they went to indefinite support,” O’Heron said, adding that he was disappointed to hear Blackboard will cut back on its support for Angel. “We’re not surprised that they’re ending the life of Angel, but in the end we respect the fact that they’re honoring our current agreement.”

O’Heron said Penn State is planning to pilot Learn next summer after much prodding from Blackboard. “They’ve been lobbying us ever since they bought Angel back in May 2009,” he said, but added, “That’s not to say we’re closing our options.”

The State University of New York, meanwhile, has a migration schedule in place to move all the campuses using Angel to other systems by 2017, said David Belsky, a spokesman for the system. Of the 35 campuses that at one point used Angel, 23 still need to migrate.

SUNY is something of a success story for Blackboard. Six campuses have already moved to Learn and another “handful” will migrate to Moodle, Belsky said.

Apart from holdouts such as Penn State and SUNY, Angel is today a more common sight at smaller institutions. The average Angel institution has about half the number of students as the average institution running Sakai, according to Kroner’s data. Many of those that still run the system today are community colleges that launched the system a decade ago and have yet to migrate to a new one.

Read full story by Carl Straumsheim on Inside HigherEd

Persona Learning, named a top LMS for 2015 and number 5 for education, is positioned to assist Angel LMS customers cope with the imminent end of life support announced by Blackboard.  Persona Learning is committed to providing a transition and migration plan to help ease the pain of change…  At 99 cents per user per course for higher education and 99 cents per student per year for K12 Persona Learning should be considered by all education organizations as a cost effective way to migrate away from or to a new learning management system…

Persona Learning Ranked in Top 50 Learning Management System Category for 2015

Craig WeissThe Top 50 LMS report for 2015 was published by the industry’s #1 rated eLearning analyst Craig Weiss, CEO of eLearning 24/7 and the report not only packs a wealth of information it names Persona Learning as a top LMS for 2015. No stranger to being among “best in class” Persona Learning continues to disrupt the eLearning industry by simultaneously pursuing platform differentiation while providing its Persona LearningLearn platform at a lower cost than all competitors.

Persona Learning ranked higher than Instructure and Moodle in the education category and outranked corporate stalwarts SumTotal, Meridian, and Topyx.

In regards to Persona Learning, Weiss commented “Solid fit for associations, higher ed, hybrids i.e. higher ed/corporate and corporate in general. Mid-size and up (internal), B2B too (external audience).elearning 24/7

Persona Learning President and CEO Tom Winterstein stated “lists are great for organizations and while it’s always an honor to be recognized by analysts such as Craig Weiss, the #1 rated analyst in the industry, our focus remains on driving innovation and value to our clients by providing products and services that enable organizations to deliver the best learning experience possible at the most economical price.”

Winterstein further went on to highlight Persona Learning’s new and “disruptive” industry pricing model that for the first time provides an unprecedented price of 99 cents per student per year in K12, 99 cents per student per course in higher education, and $10-$19 per user for non education organizations.  “It’s time for the industry to understand that high quality combined with a low price provides value to organizations beyond anything that’s been done in the market place before” Winterstein stated.

Please Note: Persona Learning is listed in this report as its former name “Adrenna”.

Boilermakers: BNAP builds cutting-edge training program

BNAP staff members work on story-boarding a video segment of the BNAP Online Interactive Training System. L. to r., trainer Dave Vallacqua, lead instructor John Standish, BNAP National Coordinator Marty Spencer (standing), trainer Terry Collins, and trainer Mark Branscum.

Internet-based instruction offers big advantages

BOILERMAKER APPRENTICES will soon gain a whole new training experience through an Internet-based program called the BNAP Online Interactive Training System. The system is under development by the Boilermakers National Apprenticeship Program (BNAP) in conjunction with the Construction Sector Operations Division and leveraging one of Persona Learning’s award winning platforms. It will include an updated and standardized version of BNAP’s core curriculum.Boilermakers Union

The BNAP Online Interactive Training System is nothing short of revolutionary, says BNAP National Coordinator Marty Spencer. “We are about to embark on an adventure into a whole new approach to classroom training. This is cutting-edge, Internet-based technology. It will make students want to learn and see what comes next instead of being forced to learn.”

Spencer says the system is interactive, so apprentices will be able to view and respond to situations presented in video and other formats. The system will allow for self-paced as well as trainer-led instruction. Both methods will use the same material, but the system will offer options as to how the classroom lessons will be presented.

“The analysis has been completed and the decision has been made to leap into the future.”

— Marty Spencer, BNAP NTC

“‘Seat time’ is built right in by implementing interactive exercises, required reading, and required viewing,” says Spencer. “Local lodges with huge geographic work jurisdictions can opt for the student-driven method; locals that are more geographically concentrated may choose to implement the instructor-guided version, the student-driven method, or both. Another benefit with this on-line version is that it allows traveling apprentices an opportunity to complete their classroom lessons while working on the road.”

Individual unit testing will be done online for both the classroom lessons and the Related Studies Lessons. To submit a completed test, an apprentice will simply hit the program’s “send” button. Tests will be received and graded automatically. To protect the integrity of the testing process, apprentices will be required to take periodic performance-based tests at the training center in front of an instructor.

In addition to the new online system for classroom training, all 48 Related Studies Independent Lessons are being updated to reflect industry changes and advancements, according to Spencer. He says first-year classroom lessons will be ready to roll out this summer.

The BNAP Board of Trustees has sanctioned the development of an additional module that will define expectations and set the tone for the entire program.

An initial train-the-trainer session is planned for May of this year. Classroom instructors planning to teach the new curriculum must complete the trainer course. Instructors will be re-trained every other year.

Spencer credited IP Newton B. Jones for spearheading the new training approach.

“He felt it was time to examine the way construction Boilermaker apprentices are being trained and how their learning is evaluated. The analysis has been completed and the decision has been made to leap into the future.”