In this fluid online learning and teaching vendor marketplace, systems and application software upgrades occur frequently; new competitors constantly join the fray; slow-moving, under-funded competitors go out of business; and others get gobbled up in business mergers and buy-outs.

Following is a short list of companies, along with brief descriptions of some of their products and services, that we believe are making an impact, or beginning to make some headway, within higher education online learning and teaching. Some are more fixed inside the corporate eLearning world, but these same companies are starting to stretch into higher education.

Of course, this is nowhere near a complete inventory. For a more comprehensive list of companies and organizations that work inside online higher education on numerous levels, please visit the "where to go on the web" section of the Educational Pathways website at www.edpath.com/webguide.htm.

Also, a great article in a similar vein was recently published in the August 2002 issue of Syllabus magazine (www.syllabus.com), titled "A Moving Target: eLearning Vendors Take Aim in a Changing Environment," by Sharon Gray.

Blackboard - Blackboard recently devoted a great deal of effort in transforming want it calls its "Building Blocks" vision into a reality. The Blackboard Building Blocks program allows any customer, vendor, or partner to integrate external applications, tools, content, and services into Blackboard platforms. Blackboard either licenses its software directly to a campus that hosts the application, or Blackboard can host the software at its co-location center, which is an ASP model (Application Service Provider).

eCollege  - eCollege is an ASP exclusively. This means that its software resides on eCollege servers, and the use of eCollege occurs over the Internet. Under an ASP model, online learning providers forego ownership, management, and service of the software. Fundamentally, eCollege is a service-oriented company that offers a wide range of services, including course development, instructional design, student services, faculty training, and course conversion.

WebCT  - Its newest product, Vista has a great deal of promise and incorporates a flexible learning framework, an integrated teaching and learning suite, content management and delivery options, capabilities for learning information management, and is delivered on a enterprise class platform architecture. WebCT, like Blackboard, is primarily a licensed software, mounted on the school site, but is also available in a hosted, or ASP, form.

Of course, there are a good number of other CMS providers, such as Anlon, IntraLearn, Angel and Jones e-education. And we’d be remiss not to mention the Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI) currently under development at MIT. OKI is a collaborative project between Stanford, North Carolina State, Dartmouth, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, Cambridge University, University of Wisconsin, University of Washington and MIT to develop an open-source framework that supports the development of a variety of educational applications, including online course management and assessment tools.

Two well-established companies that provide a suite of both technology and service-oriented solutions to online higher education providers through partnerships with a variety of vendors, as well as through internally developed products and services, are Embanet and Collegis, Inc. Both companies display long lists of their solution-oriented services on their websites. Embanet, for instance, provides a full-slate of online learning-oriented services, including course conversion, 24 X 7 live technical support, course development, instructional design, strategic planning, project management, hardware infrastructure, hosting, online instructor training and more. The Collegis suite of services includes assessments, strategic planning, business process redesign, marketing, technology management, network management, web design, application management and more.

Brownstone - Creators of an online assessment and homework management system called EDU Campus; also known for its "Diploma" test-authoring and test-administration software. The University of Nebraska, Lincoln is a Brownstone partner.

Centra  - This company seems to be making big strides into online higher education. It offers a set of products that facilitate live, real-time online learning environments, such as web conferencing and audio and video conferencing for groups. Two institutions that currently rely on Centra for the synchronous elements of their online courses are New York University’s Virtual College and its School of Continuing and Professional Studies, as well as Capitol College’s Online Distance Learning Program.

Centrinity  - Centrinity’s FirstClass communications platform features what it calls "collaborative groupware" and "unified communication technologies" to provide users with a variety of solutions, ranging from basic e-mail and voice mail to advanced unified communications (converges a user’s email, voice and fax messages into one FirstClass mailbox). The Rochester Institute of Technology’s online learning program utilizes FirstClass.

Ichat - Provider of software for live chat rooms, asynchronous message boards and instant messaging.

Lesson Lab  - The core of LessonLab’s product line is the LessonLab Technology Platform. Using LessonLab Viewer, teachers learn to analyze and improve teaching practices, and collaborate with other teachers, both in live groups and virtually, over the Internet. Using LessonLab Builder, teachers and content providers build digital libraries of case-based materials. Pepperdine University’s Graduate School of Education and Psychology is currently using LessonLab.

Link-Systems International, Inc.  - Among a number of services, Link-Systems specializes in communication of mathematical, scientific, technical and medical material. It also has a whiteboard software product, called WWWhiteboard, which is being currently being utilized by CMS providers eCollege and Jones
e-education.

Macromedia  - A staff member adept at using Macromedia software can be invaluable to an online learning program that wants to add animation and illustrations to its courses, as well as for designing and managing a program’s website. Its new Macromedia Studio MX, which includes versions of Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, FreeHand 10, ColdFusion MX Server Developer Edition and HomeSite+, is currently available in a back-to-school special for educators for only $199.

MathType  - An interactive tool for Windows and Macintosh that lets you create mathematical notation for word processing, web pages, desktop publishing, presentations, and for TeX, LaTeX, and MathML documents.

WebX  - Another well-known communications software company that provides online conferencing services that enable end-users to share presentations, documents, applications, voice, and video in real time.

Wimba  - Wimba has created a suite of asynchronous voice products, such as a threaded message board in which users click on message titles to hear messages and speak into a microphone to post messages, and a streaming voice e-mail application that enables the sender to distribute voice e-mail to one or more recipients. In particular, language teachers can use Wimba’s voice-enabling technologies to help students improve their listening comprehension, pronunciation and conversational skills. The company recently formed a partnership with Blackboard.

The LMS has its inception primarily in the corporate training field and are moving into online higher education. These systems are designed to work with individual learners, not class or cohort-based models. These systems are able to work directly with a single learner in an adaptive learning mode. For example, based on online assessments, certain LMS’s are designed to present individual modules students in the areas they are weakest, These systems are seen predominantly in the training field, but some LMS functionality is being requested in CMS products. The predominant systems are Docent and Saba, though there are a number of other systems. Both have education clients for technology training programs.

As more and more content populates the web, companies with high volumes of dynamic content began to rely on content management systems. As corporate training companies began to increasingly manage more and more learning content, the term Learning Content Management System (LCMS) arose. A LCMS will allow content to be saved as "objects" and classified by function and displayed through the use of XML tags. These systems have not yet been adapted directly for online higher education. However, a number of companies are designing such systems. Such systems, adhering to content standards, such as SCORM and IMS, could allow content and courses to be authored once, but used in different CMS or LMS products. Companies entering this space include EduLink, Theorix and Knowledge Mechanics.

These systems, in short, are information management systems that support an institution’s administrative functions on numerous levels, including student registration, grade entry, transcript management, and more. There is a breed of SIS utilized in higher education that can be integrated with CMS or LMS products. Some familiar SIS names are Datatel, SCT and PeopleSoft.

Campus Pipeline - Customizable portal product that includes a suite of applications, including web-based email, web-based calendar functionality, an online announcement system, message boards, chat rooms and more.

Cenquest - Provides a higher education management service that links employer-funded master’s degrees, provided both online and blended modes, with strategic company goals. Clients include Babson College, Oregon Health & Science University and The University of Texas at Austin’s IC² Institute.

Smarthinking  - Provides live, online tutoring solutions for colleges, universities, high schools, publishers and government.

This list of vendors, all of whom have considerable reach inside online higher education learning and teaching, was provided as a brief education about who is doing what, and, as aforementioned, is by no means a complete list.