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[larryc]

I am teaching an online course next quarter and trying to summon the wherewithal to divorce BB once and for all. The course is a 400/500 level readings course--I won't need online testing (which is the major thing that has kept me with BB) but I do need robust discussion boards, an online grade book, and course announcements that can include pictures and video and that automatically push emails to the enrolled students.

Has anyone used CourseKit http://coursekit.com/?

[uri_prof]

I am a lab instructor at URI and I used coursekit and loved it.  It sounds like exactly what you need!  It is based around class discussion, and in a much nicer way than blackboard does it.  Every time you post a comment on the coursekit wall it will email the students and it does a nice job with handling pictures and video.  Hope it works out for you!

[slinger]

I've never used coursekit.  At Spork's suggestion a while back, I recently tried and LOVED Canvas by Instructure.  It does everything you want (and more) and is actually easy to use.  It's what blackboard could be only in its wildest dreams. 

[homelessscientist]

How do you deal with the legal issues of putting student information on Web sites hosted by companies that have not signed data protection agreements with your university?   In particular, the Coursekit founders have explicitly stated that they intend to use the site and its user base as a marketing platform in the future.  I've looked at Coursekit, and it does have a very nice interface, but FERPA and related legal concerns would make me think a few times, especially before using the gradebook features.

[uri_prof_ohreally]

found this post by searching the web and thought i'd point out the following:

*** uri_prof in the previous post is probably a Coursekit's employee ***

unfortunately, they don't realize that having a username with 1 post on the whole site trying to "mimic" a real "lab  professor" would get pointed out.

This isn't the way to increase your PR!

Now for a real review: Coursekit is really not that bad a piece of software, UI wise.  The biggest problem here, is having trust in a 20 year old kid running a website with some buddies in new york.  One of the ways that they are planning to make revenue is sell the data from you and your students.  (everything from a student's grade information and the papers they write, to what computer they use)- Similar to facebook owning all your photos and content...   It says this blatantly in their privacy policy - http://coursekit.com/privacy - see "5. Disclosure of Your Personal Data"

This is the academic world, not some damn social networking invention, and unfortunately, that's one thing that these kids don't realize, nor their investors.  I wouldn't trust any rebuttal anyone else that has 1 post says about this - read the privacy policy and decide yourself.

Trust me, I am as anti-BB as you get, and was an early adopter (you might say beta tester) of this software and found out that they were using my personal class data as a demo to investors and probably many others.  Bad Mistake!  Word gets around.  Again, nothing bad intended, but is what happens when you trust a 20-year olds running a company.  I don't mean for this to sound like a personal vendetta, because it's not, and you can believe me or not, but do me a favor and read their privacy policy before you sign up and just be weary of folks posting on here with no credibility (i use myself as an example - who the hell am i? I might be a blackboard executive for all you know).

[ledzepp6]

For what it's worth (not a lot), I am not a coursekit employee. I'm using coursekit for two courses this semester, one general history survey with about 35 students and one seminar with about 10. So far I would highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in breaking the hold of blackboard on their teaching. There are still a couple rough edges but overall the site makes simplicity a virtue. It does a few essential things, like communicating, gathering submissions, and posting grades, really well. The incredibly complex, clunky, and confusing interface of blackboard, its "rich" feature set, was part of the problem. I looked at Canvas by Instructure, and though it looked like a very nice solution, probably far superior to blackboard, it also looked like it was prone to the same problem: at some point a "rich" feature set becomes an obstacle to doing the really simple things quickly and well.

As far as trusting a group of young guys ("kids"?) to run a company, I have no problem doing that. They at least have some stake in making sure the site works for its users, which is more than I can say for most of the IT help I've had with blackboard. So far they are incredibly responsive to problems and issues, and even implementing suggestions. I think we have a great opportunity right now with sites like coursekit to shape the kind of LMS we want to use.

The worries about privacy of data and the business model are legitimate, but it's unfair to peg coursekit with problems that are common to most social networking sites and the internet in general. Their privacy policy isn't different from most other sites, and I can't see how it would be different than using facebook, which people are doing out of desperation to get away from blackboard.

[zharkov]

I've used it to host some discussions....  The approach to linking to websites, articles, and videos is nice, and I think the Facebook-ish interface is a plus.  I'm not ready to turn my whole course over, yet, but I'd give it 1.5 thumbs up.  The "0.5" is that the interface is not quite as intuitive as I'd really like and also that I found logging in with Chrome to be a problem.  (On Win 7, IE works fine.)  Not sure if that is a CK problem, a Chrome problem, or some funky setting that I need to change on Chrome.

[helpful]

My university forbids us from using any other CMS than moodle.

[zharkov]

My university forbids us from using any other CMS than moodle.

So they tell you Coursekit or whatnot is Verboten? 

Well, you don't tell them you're trying it out. 

If our forebears listened to the powers that be, we'd never have transitioned from the scroll to the codex.

[bone_gal]

I'm not surprised the the CourseKit employee said it's wonderful!

But I just wanted to chime in one of my colleagues did a demo for several of us and I thought I'd share my thoughts. My first reaction is that it would be nice as a supplement for a traditional class but I would never use it to teach fully online. There was no exam tool that we found (you could list an exam in the calendar, but there wasn't anything there to host an exam online), and the discussions also weren't typical functionality that I'm used to. It also looked very weak in terms of presenting content through a visual editor instead of just linking to a file. But with that being said, it does look nice and seems user friendly. If your students are into the social aspect (seeing an activity stream and commenting on it) then they may like it.