Blackboard Ends Participation in Moodle's Certified Partner Program

WASHINGTON, July 27, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Blackboard announced that the company has strategically decided to end its partnership with Moodle and is transitioning out of Moodle's Certified Partner Program. The company will allocate resources from the partnership to further support development of its Moodle-based SaaS product, available globally on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Blackboard has been a major player in the open source community since joining Moodle in 2012 and more than 1,000 clients use Blackboard's Moodle-based product and 20 percent of them have joined in the last year with a growing pipeline.

Blackboard continues to support the largest number of clients using a Moodle-based SaaS product in the world. With the end of the partnership, there will be no change in Blackboard's ability to utilize open source updates and enhancements produced by Moodle and the open-source community. Additionally, there will be no change in the current user experience for clients and no drop-off in Blackboard's pace of innovation and development. The company will continue to contribute code and features back to the open-source community ? and work to move the community forward together.

"As the education landscape and our clients' needs continue to evolve, so has our strategy of providing the most innovative and effective SaaS-based teaching and learning solutions," said Kathleen Vieira, Chief Portfolio Officer at Blackboard. "Exiting the Certified Moodle Partner program will not impact our unwavering commitment to open-source and open standards, and we will continue to invest in our Moodle-based SaaS solutions and to contribute to the open-source community. We admire Moodle's contributions to education and the open-source community." 

Blackboard is increasing investment in its supporting ecosystem of products and in the development of open standards.  In addition to the hundreds of certified plugins currently supported, in the last year the company has delivered new tools to the Moodle community including Blackboard Ally and SafeAssign. Blackboard will continue to bring new capabilities, services, and product offerings to open-source clients focused on enhancing the learning experience.

Through this change, Blackboard will better align its Moodle-based SaaS product with its overall mission to deliver innovative teaching and learning solutions that meet the evolving needs of institutions and their learners around the world. The company will introduce new branding for its open-source product soon.

About Blackboard Inc.

Our mission is to partner with the global education community to enable learner success, leveraging innovative technologies and services. With an unmatched understanding of the world of the learner, the most comprehensive student-success solutions, and the greatest capacity for innovation, Blackboard is education's partner in change.

Contact 
Shawnee Cohn, Blackboard
240-888-5687, [email protected] 

SOURCE Blackboard Inc.