One of the laments many faculty express at the migration of course materials from the open Web to course management systems is that it is harder to find  examples of syllabii from colleagues at other institutions, since for the most part, Blackboard courses don't show up via Google. 

The ITS department at University of North Carolina has just released a nifty new tool called bFree that takes the contents of a Blackboard course and creates a free-standing website out of it. While one wonders how it handles the parts of a course that really shouldn't be on the open Web (copyrighted materials, private information for student eyes only, etc.), this seems nonetheless a welcome development. Using bFree can perhaps turn the tide of encroaching invisibility, providing access to the materials presently hidden behind the CMS firewall.

Jim Farmer, Coordinator of Georgetown University's new Interoperability Center, has gotten plenty of notice over the last week or so for his report "On the Cost of Selling an Enterprise Learning System." But almost as interesting as reading the report is watching the discussion of Farmer's analysis move through the blogosphere.

The report itself, dated 8 January 2006, exists, as far as I can tell, as a free-floating, unadorned pdf file with the footer "Jim Farmer, instructional media + magic, inc" the only identifier. Michael Feldstein's excellent January 12 e-Literate coverage of Farmer's document offers the most thorough analysis, and in a sense "publishes" Farmer. Stephen Downes (Stephen's Web), picks up Feldstein's story the following day. Several comments evoke response and clarification from Farmer on Stephen's Web. Then a Chronicle Wired Campus blog entry on January 17 summarizes the report, highlights the implications for open source, and, quoting Feldstein, makes it sound like his work. That produces a disclaimer on Feldstein's blog pointing Chronicle readers back to the original report. There's plenty more to report about the circulation, but you get the idea.

It's an important discussion about open-source solutions--and a fascinating glimpse at the evolving nature of academic discussions in the blogosphere.