Higher education is very litigious. Students sue universities over encroaching on personal beliefs. People who fail to get accepted sue over discrimination or reverse discrimination. Employees claim wrongful termination. Publishers claim copyright infringement. Software companies battling over patents. Equal funding of historically black colleges and universities to non-black counterparts.

We are involved in selecting a new LMS. The Utah Education Network is one of the few Blackboard clients very comparable to us. I track their performance issues because I expect when we reach the same size we could have the same problems. Their selection of Instructure Canvas caused quite a buzz. D2L going for the buzzkill with a lawsuit perhaps stirred up even more buzz. Unfortunately, it seemed all against D2L.

D2L milked being the victim in the Blackboard patent lawsuit. Now they want to be the victim in suing a tiny company over winning the UEN LMS contract. Some speculated this was all so D2L can get a hold of the documentation explaining why they lost to a company they consider inferior. (The letter explaining why they could not possibly be the real reason.)

Dropping the lawsuit was a good move for D2L, I think. What they would lose in the “court of public opinion” certainly outweighs anything they could gain through a lawsuit.

Anyhow, a good of this is others involved in a selection process hopefully will make sure to be more transparent in order to avoid a similar situation.