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BERSIN & ASSOCIATES © 2008

BERSIN & ASSOCIATES

Research Bulletin | 2008

About the Author

Josh Bersin,Principal Analyst

Blackboard Inc., the leading provider of online learning and course

management systems (more than $300 million in run-rate revenue) for

higher education, grades K-12, and corporate and government markets,

has now entered the small to medium business (SMB) corporate learning

market. ProSites, a hosted, easy-to-use online learning platform, is

designed to help small and midsized organizations (and departments)

manage and deploy training at a very low cost.

ProSites was launched in August, 2007 – and includes Blackboard’s easy-

to-use course management, collaboration, assessments, authoring and

reporting tools, with new features for corporate training.

August 13, 2008 Volume 3, No. 21

BERSIN & ASSOCIATES, LLC6114 LA SALLE AVENUE

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Blackboard Reaches Corporate Learning Market with Low-Cost ProSites Offering

Source: Blackboard, 2008.

Figure 1: ProSites Home Page


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Blackboard Reaches Corporate Learning Market Josh Bersin |

The Lack of Low-End Learning Management System Options

The Blackboard offering fills a niche in the departmental, small

organization “entry-level” learning management system (LMS) market –

working groups with tens to hundreds of employees that need an

online system – which can manage content, provide easy content

authoring and help instructors manage courses. Consider a small sales

organization, a customer service team or a nonprofit organization that

wants to train its constituents. These organizations may not have a

systems administrator and rarely have a budget for a corporate LMS.

ProSites is easy to administer and is priced for small implementations –

$9,500 for the first 200 users and $4,500 per year for each additional

100 users (under $50 per user per year).

Today, such small workgroups and organizations typically look to

a corporate LMS like Learn.com, GeoLearning, NetDimensions,

TrainingPartner or SkillPort from SkillSoft. While these systems are

priced similarly and have many more features, they require more

complex administration and are designed to provide complete end-to-

end administration (e.g., classroom scheduling, resource management

and even e-commerce). These features are useful in corporatewide

training applications, but are often too complex for a department or

nonprofit institution.

The larger, enterprise-class LMS companies (such as SumTotal Systems,

Saba, Softscape, Plateau, Oracle, SAP and Cornerstone OnDemand) also

provide solutions for midsized organizations through their on-demand

offerings. But few have the pricing structure or salesforce to sell a

complete solution to a department or organization with only a few

hundred employees.

Features of the Blackboard ProSites Solution

Course Management

As with any LMS, the system enables an administer to create, copy,

archive and manage courses. A “course” can consist of any arrangement

of content, collaboration and online activities.


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Simple Content Authoring

The system includes a simple course authoring tool – which enables

an administrator or instructor to upload materials, build pages, create

navigation, include assessments and assignments (which are sent to an

instructor), and engage in collaboration.


Figure 2: ProSites Course Interface


Figure 3: ProSites Authoring Interface


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Managing Instructor-Led Programs

Perhaps the most valuable use of Blackboard ProSites is the complex and

messy process of what the company calls “course management.” Instructor-

led training (ILT) programs always include a variety of activities, such as:

• Lectures and audio materials;

• Slides and slide notes;

• Syllabi and assignments;

• Quizzes and quiz results;

• Tests and final exams;

• Workgroup project assignments;

• Student comments and feedback;

• Reference materials;

• Simulations and other high-touch learning activities; and,

• Online assessments.

When any organization of any size develops and delivers instructor-led

training, there is a burden of administration placed on the instructor.

In the traditional university setting (on which Blackboard has focused

for years), the professor or teacher assembles all these materials,

reads student assignments (or delegates them to others), monitors the

progress of each student, and then delivers a “grade.” They iterate and

improve each and every element of the course each year – and, in many

cases, the course materials vary during the course itself (i.e., current

events may change the content).

Without a solution like ProSites, such a process is very burdensome and

handcrafted. Corporate LMS systems provide many of these features,

but they are designed for use by course administrators, not necessarily

individual instructors.

One example of an organization using this is Kids Inc., an organization

which teaches secondary school teachers how to understand

neurological learning challenges in their students. Kids Inc. teaches

these two to three day courses throughout the country at 10 different


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learning locations. The primary author of much of the material is one

of the founders of Kids Inc. Through the use of ProSites, this founder

can replicate his class materials rapidly, manage many courses easily and

collaborate with his co-authors.

While ProSites is priced and positioned for use by smaller training and

teaching groups and departments (e.g., sales training, customer service

training, customer education), class management is a problem in large

corporate universities, as well. While many of these organizations may

have access to a corporate LMS, we believe ProSites may be easier for

instructors to use than the corporate LMS.

The corporate LMS is needed to provide scheduling and store the

“system of record” for an employee, but many companies have legacy

LMS systems that do not have an easy-to-use interface for such class

management needs.

Collaboration

Our research clearly shows that most organizations (84 percent1) want

to improve the collaborative learning experiences in their training

1 For more information, The High-Impact Learning Organization: WhatWorks® in the Management, Governance and Operations of Modern Corporate Training, Bersin & Associates / Josh Bersin, May 2008. Available to research members at www.bersin.com/library or for purchase at www.bersin.com/highimpact.


Figure 4: ProSites Collaboration Interface

http://www.bersin.com/library

http://www.bersin.com/highimpact


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programs. Today, collaboration usually means classroom assignments

and perhaps an online discussion room. Modern LMS systems have many

features for collaboration, but they are often unused by employees. The

reason for this is that they are often not “instructor-friendly” – and are,

therefore, not considered by the instructors teaching courses.

ProSites’ collaboration features, while no more advanced that those

in other systems, are designed for easy administration by instructors,

facilitating collaboration as a course management feature. They

are designed to be integrated with course assignments, and to be

moderated by both instructors and subject-matter experts – making

collaboration easy to enable. While these features are not unique to

ProSites, they make the solution even easier to justify for a department

or workgroup training organization.

Testing and Assessment

As discussed earlier, almost all instructor-led training (and certainly all

educational programs) have some sort of assessment. In the corporate

training market, assessment is often used for compliance needs and to

aid in the learning process. (Grades are rarely used, but scores are often

used to certify completion and learning.)


Figure 5: ProSites Assessment Interface


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ProSites’ assessment tool is very complete and offers more than enough

functionality to enable corporate assessment solutions. It allows

organizations to create a variety of question types, establish answer clues

and feedback, and provide reporting to the instructor and administrator.

ProSites’ assessment tool is not designed to serve as the backbone of

an enterprisewide compliance or assessment solution; but, in a small

workgroup or department, it gives the trainer or instructor an easy-to-

use, integrated solution.

Reporting and Analysis

In the corporate LMS market, reporting has become a mammoth and

complex system. In fact, most corporate LMS reporting tools include

ad-hoc report builders, analytics systems, report distribution tools,

exception reporting systems and many custom features.

ProSites’ reporting is different. It is focused on the needs of the instructor

or administrator, with the primary goal of managing the delivery of

training itself. As Figures 6 and 7 show, the system is very easy to use, and

provides highly actionable information for the instructor or administrator.

For administration, the ProSites reporting system also helps the

organization understand content usage and general activity level across

all parts of the system.


Figure 6: ProSites Reporting for Instructors


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Bottom Line: Should You Consider ProSites for Corporate Training?

Blackboard is a well-run, highly successful company. In its core market

of universities, and now primary and secondary education, the company

has staked out a dominant market position.

The corporate training market is different. Buyers here focus on

scheduling, tracking, reporting and e-learning features. Corporations

want their LMSs to serve as the “employee system of record” for

training, competencies, development plans and even performance

management records. In fact, corporate LMS systems are more complex

than almost any other form of HR software. Our research on LMS

systems2 helps readers understand these solution providers.

2 For more information, Learning Management Systems 2008: Facts, Practical Analysis, Trends and Vendor Profiles, Bersin & Associates / Josh Bersin, Chris Howard and Karen O’Leonard, July 2007.


Figure 7: ProSites Reporting for Content Managers


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Yet, regardless of the need for a corporate LMS, there is also major

demand for an easy-to-use, low-cost course management, e-learning,

authoring and assessment system like ProSites. Our research shows that

even the best-run corporate training organizations end up with many

LMS systems, often purchased by different departments for different

local learning needs.3 When a small workgroup or department needs a

training administration and delivery system, it can rarely afford the time

and energy to purchase a corporate LMS, even if it is provided by one

of the midmarket solution providers. Also, despite many years of effort

in ease of use, most corporate LMS systems are focused on providing

features for the training administrator and training manager, not

the instructor.

ProSites fills a well-known gap – meeting the needs of workgroups,

teams and departments that cannot access the corporate LMS, or those

that simply need a system of their own for rapid deployment and ease

of use. While ProSites will not meet the needs of a corporate LMS, it

plays an important role for organizations that must develop, deliver,

administer and manage training for many hundreds of users.

3 For more information, Learning Management Systems 2008: Facts, Practical Analysis, Trends and Vendor Profiles, Bersin & Associates / Josh Bersin, Chris Howard and Karen O’Leonard, July 2007.

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