© al-hayat

Content management giant Blackboard has never been known for its friendliness with other websites. Blackboard has been extremely aggressive in defending its copyrights and doesn't shy away from lawsuits against similar companies.

According to some reports, however, Blackboard may be opening up to social network linking. The Washington Business Journal reports:

"Blackboard is vowing its new education software will not only focus on improving student assessment capabilities and interactive features - it also will operate more easily with other vendors' systems.

For example, students and administrators will be able to log on to Blackboard's system and access information from other learning systems, as well as from social networking sites such as Facebook."

If these plans are really carried out, this seems like a major step forward for a system that is often criticized for its archaic closemindedness.