Blackboard Inc., now Anthology, is an American educational technology company with corporate headquarters in Boca Raton, Florida.

The firm was founded by Stephen Gilfus, Daniel Cane, Michael Chasen and Matthew Pittinsky[7] through a business combination in 1997, and became a public company in 2004.

[12] Chasen and Pittinsky started Blackboard after leaving KPMG Consulting where they both had worked as part of the company's higher education practice.

[19] By 2006, the firm's learning platform software was used in more than 40% of U.S. college campuses and the company had gained a significant worldwide market share.

[25] Sale of shares in the initial public offering raised an estimated $70 million for the company,[20] making it the second-most successful technology IPO of that year.

[26] In 2006, Blackboard completed the acquisition of its largest competitor, WebCT Inc, enlarging its share of the higher education market to between 65 and 75 percent.

[32] On July 1, 2011, Blackboard agreed to a $1.64 billion buyout by an investor group led by Providence Equity Partners, completed on October 4, 2011.

[42] It holds the highest share of the education market with 75 percent of colleges and universities and more than half of K-12 districts in the US using its products and services.

[65] In August 2015, Blackboard acquired Colombia-based Nivel7, possibly the largest Moodle services provider in Latin America.

[67][68] Whilst still retaining a large market share in the US, Blackboard was overtaken globally by the open source Moodle, which became the dominant worldwide VLE.

[77] In 2011, the firm re-launched the original CourseSites offering, a free version of its Blackboard Learn and Collaborate software, for which it provides hosting and support.

[79] The company's products' user interfaces became "infamous as a part of academic life that was to be endured, not enjoyed" according to TechCrunch writer Rip Empson in 2014.

[62][80] In March 2020, Blackboard agreed to its sell Open LMS business to Learning Technologies Group for $31.7 million.

[81] Blackboard Collaborate was created in July 2010[31] and is used by K-12 schools and higher education institutions for professional development and distance learning.

The platform is also used by businesses for distance learning and for conferencing[82] The company launched Blackboard Mobile in 2009 after having acquired TerriblyClever.

[31] The platform provides students with access to teaching and learning content and campus information through mobile applications for iOS, Android, BlackBerry and WebOS devices.

[87] The company began providing its Blackboard Connect service in 2008,[31] for use by school districts and higher education institutions to send out mass phone, text and e-mail notifications.

[91][92] Blackboard Transact also includes a program for off-campus vendors that allow students to pay for goods using their college's campus card.

[31] The Blackboard Analytics platform is a system for data warehousing and analysis, with applications for educational institutions to analyze student numbers, class scheduling, and financial information.

The patent established Blackboard's claims to the concept of connecting together web-based tools to create an interconnected university-wide course management system.

The website BoycottBlackboard.org was set up by Chris Hambly on August 2, 2006, calling for a boycott of the company's products and offering an online petition to be signed by those who opposed the patent.

[citation needed] In addition, some critics of the patent and lawsuit created a Wikipedia article for the history of virtual learning environments to document existing examples of course management software.

[105] The dispute was resolved, when Blackboard and Desire2Learn announced on December 15, 2009, that each company was settling all ongoing litigation between them and had made a cross-licensing agreement.