The Chronicle Higher Education Online reported in article dated August 10th
"Web Portal Adds Free Course-Management Tools to Its Offerings" By Brock
Read that:
Yahoo, the popular Web portal, has tossed its hat into the online-learning
ring, opening Yahoo Education, a Web site that provides course-management
tools and reference materials for college and grade-school classes.
One noteworthy feature of the service is something it does not include: a
charge. Professors and students will see advertisement banners on the Yahoo
site, but otherwise it costs them nothing. Blackboard.com also offers
instructors a free Web-site-creation service. Other software from Blackboard
and WebCT, another major provider of online-course tools, is marketed to
institutions.
The site -- which opened on Tuesday -- marks Yahoo's first foray into higher
education. The new service will cater to individual professors, according to
Catherine Davis, the producer of Yahoo Education. But she adds, "We've had
quite a bit of interest from universities."
On the site, instructors create course pages that allow them to post class
rosters, calendars, and syllabuses; communicate with students through
message boards and e-mail; and assign readings and collect course work. The
pages can be left open to the public or restricted to registered class
members.
.......
Ms. Davis sees Yahoo Education as a supplement to the lecture hall, not a
replacement for it. "The goal was to create a support for the actual
classroom and community," she says, while acknowledging that the site might
also support distance-education ventures. "I know that it will also be used
as a virtual community."
........