The CourseInfo Histoy is robust in its roots at Cornell University and its involvement in Cornell’s entrepreneurship program. A link to an article on the companies Cornell University roots can be found here at http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/97/10.16.97/Web_company.html

A spin-off from KPMG, Blackboard LLC. began as a consulting firm contracting to the non-profit Global Learning Consortium. Some say that Blackboard LLC. was first funded by securing a $1.5M on a contract that KPMG did not want to fulfill. The contract was to work with EDUCOM, now EDUCAUSE, on their National Learning Infrastructure Initiative, now ELI , as the primary contractor t0 the IMS Global Consortiumdeveloping elearning standards for web based learning applications. Micheal Chasen and Matthew Pittinsky where associate consultants at the firm at the time and cut a deal with then KPMG divison Vice President Greg Baroni to secure the contract and then wheel their chairs and computers out of the [www.kpmg.com KPMG] office to a local brownstone to start the company.

In return Greg Baroni received stock in the company.

The two companies met each other when they bumped into each other at a conference in Washington, DC. At the time the two organizations where seeking funding and thought that they might be able to obtain a grant for their businesses via a program that the US Government was doing in adaptive testing. Shortly after the two teams met together to discuss the opportunities in joining the teams. The combined company became known as Blackboard Inc. The CourseInfo, Ithaca team moved to Washington DC to join in on the new company located at 1111, 19th Street and Blackboard Inc. was formed.

The new companies product platform was the product CourseInfo developed. Blackboard essentially dumped all of its products, including the IMS prototype they had built with the consortium, and most of its windows based development staff shortly after the merger. The products were then branded Blackboard CourseInfo to levergage the brand awareness and success of the CourseInfo team. The CourseInfo brand was dropped in 2000 in order to further refine the Blackboard brand.