And Nixty is not the only system to consider moving into the “open”, but that openness is key for more reasons than I think most people are attending to.

To me, the key demarcation that we need to pay attention to is between an open learning content publishing platform, and an open hub for informal, self-organizing learning communities.

I idealized Nixty as the latter–a hub for self-learners to congregate and support each other in informal learning experiences. There are a number of obstacles to that happening, and I hope Nixty is focusing on making that happen rather than replicating the LMS (though I admit my review tends to compare Nixty’s features to common LMS features, but I think that’s because of how Nixty presents itself).

And am I seeing a built-in pedagogy that divides the class into lessons (content), discussion and other features? I fail to see how that is an improvement on the big LMSs, which at least allow you to change the pedagogy, even if you have to know a lot to do it. This looks like those categories (by type of interaction, not content, themes, etc) are fixed.

Many of your criticisms are spot on. NIXTY just launched and we have a long way to go. That said, I’m glad you pointed out that we are more of an open education learning platform and less of a LMS. NIXTY is not trying to compete with traditional learning management systems. We think we have plenty of them. God knows the feature lists/requirements for institutions is going to continue to grow. Your list of feature enhancements was short when compared with most RFPs filled out by LMS vendors. NIXTY has plans to release an API and add a number of features (e.g., common cartridge imports/exports, eportfolio with work display etc.), but it is doubtful NIXTY will ever reach the feature set of a Blackboard. It is simply not in line with what we are trying to accomplish.

NIXTY, as you pointed out, is a disruptive learning solution. Disruption as Clay Christensen and, a good friend, Michael Horn have pointed out, is not about entering the market and competing on features. It just doesn’t make any sense. Rather, the disruptive approach is to provide something simple, easy-to-use, and free. That, in a nutshell, is NIXTY. Correspondingly, disruptive technologies do not enter a market and try to win market share from market leaders. Colleges and universities in North America are not going to adopt NIXTY as their LMS (yet!). We are not trying to compete head on against Blackboard, Moodle, D2L etc. These are all fine products, but, to us, they are largely designed for education’s past.

We’ve designed NIXTY for what we see as education’s future. We think open educational resources, collaboration, and certifications are going to play a big role. Consequently, we’ve designed NIXTY with these features at the core. We definitely have a long way to go, but we are proud of what we’ve accomplished and are really looking forward to learning from others and iterating the system as we grow.