EduGarage is designed to facilitate collaboration, sharing of best practices, and source code with the education development community. The site's code repositories, interactive discussion boards, and searchable knowledge bases can all be edited by members, a new feature intended to better engage and support the community. In addition, all of the content, discussions, and resources are open to the public, providing a powerful resource for the entire education-technology developer community.

"I'm really looking forward to using EduGarage.com. It is sure to be a valuable new resource for the development community to share ideas and find collaborators interested in creating new applications together", said Mark O'Neil, Curricular Systems Engineer, Dartmouth College. "The openness of the site makes it easier to access information and therefore a more convenient and helpful tool, which is something I think everyone will be pleased about."

EduGarage includes new features to engender increased interaction across the Blackboard development community, such as:

• Embedded Forums, which foster greater interaction, shared expertise, and software among developers across institutions around the globe;
• Open Access, a feature that means user logins are not required, so all visitors can read, explore, and download documents, resources, and code. A login is required for discussion board posts and Blackboard software downloads;
• Content creation through participation enables all BbDN members to contribute content, code, and best practices, producing a more robust and valuable site.

"I could not be more excited for our developer community-, said Jan Poston Day, Senior Director, Client Engagement. "The community requested a site that accommodates the tools, resources, and space for developers to gather, experiment, and share experiences and code for educational applications. With EduGarage they have a core resource to support their innovations."

Blackboard's open architecture -- Blackboard Building Blocks and Blackboard PowerLinks -- allows clients to enhance and customize the online education experience for their students and faculty. Developers can integrate their solutions and extend each of the products in the Blackboard Academic Suite(TM) to enhance the teaching and learning experience through Blackboard Building Blocks and Blackboard PowerLinks.

EduGarage is a property provided by the Blackboard Beyond InitiativeTM and is part of a series of Web properties aimed at connecting the Blackboard network of faculty, students, and developers across disciplines, institutions, and regions.