Busy. Busy. Busy.

Has it really been that long since I last posted to this blog? Sorry about being so quiet but while the rest of the northern hemisphere has been on Summer Vacation, it seems like I've never been busier. In the past 6 weeks when haven't been working on the Third Annual Blackboard Building Blocks Developers Conference (July 18-19, Georgetown University) I've been working with our Standards & Interoperability team and our activities most recently with the IMS and also looking ahead to some regional user group meetings including ones in London (June 27), Missouri (August 4), Pittsburg (October), and more!

Most recently Bob Alcorn and I were in Sheffield, England for the Alt-i-Lab 2005 conference. Bob demonstrated the Blackboard implementation of the IMS Tools Interoperability Framework (TIF) specification. Our target application was ConceptTutor. You can read more about the demonstration in this press release. We were really pleased with how everything about the experience went. The TIF team was made up of a great group of collaborators and in the months and weeks leading up to the demonstration rarely lost focus - and when they did, Kevin Riley (IMS taskmaster extraordinaire) was on hand to remind them of their deadlines. The IMS TIF experience was so productive and positive that the IMS is looking as this as a new model for encouraging consensus building and collaboration amongst specifications developers.

After Alt-i-Lab Bob and I visited the Royal Veterinary College, host to the London Users Group meeting (June 27). We were so excited to see nearly 50 attendees from 32 institutions in and around London. Some folks had travelled all the way from Scotland to join us! Our talks covered everything from what is up and coming with future releases, what Blackboard is doing in terms of supporting standards, and what is happening in the world of Building Blocks. Bob gave a technical overview of using Building Blocks for information exchange and working with custom databases. I think the highlight was the fabulous opportunities everyone had for meeting and networking with one another.

A personal highlight for me was the tour of the RVC itself. Our gracious hosts Aoun Shamsi and Nick Short showed us all sorts of treasures - the computing center, the library (home to a skeleton of a polar bear! and Napoleon's saddle) and finally the barns. I took a few pictures. I most enjoyed the fact that the RVC has the only cow in central London! Not only did I get a picture of it, Aoun took a photo of me taking a photo of it!