THE BLACKBOARD LEARNING SYSTEM

Blackboard LLC was founded in 1997 by two education advisors, Matthew Pittinsky and Michael Chasen, as a consulting firm to provide technical standards for online learning applications. Blackboard LLC was contracted to the IMS Global Learning Consortium, a worldwide non-profit organization within the National Learning Infrastructure Initiative of Educause. Blackboard's vision was to provide a user-friendly means by which college professors could put course information, including syllabi, reference sites, and study guides, on the Web. In 1998, Blackboard merged with CourseInfo LLC, a course management software provider and start up company at Cornell University, and the merged company soon released their first software product for online learning. Blackboard's continued growth and the expanding public profile was driven by acquisitions. In March 2000, Blackboard Inc. acquired the Richmond-base competitor MadDuck Technologies. In January 2001, Blackboard purchased CampusWide Access Solutions Inc. from AT&T and CEI SpecialTeams from iCollege Inc. In 2002, another online learning competitor, Promethius, was purchased from George Washington University, and then in 2003, the assets of the transaction system company, SA Cash, were acquired. Finally, Blackboard released plans to raise up to $75 2 million in an initial stock offering and went public in June 2004. Since then, Blackboard Inc. merged with the rival e-learning software company WebCT and together it is estimated they control up to 80 percent of the academic course management system market in North America. Blackboard is used by more than 70 percent of the U.S. colleges and universities named to the Forbes.com Most Connected Campuses' List.