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Maker of academic communication software Blackboard has launched a new, free service - Scholar - for its current users: a social-bookmarking service designed to connect faculty and students across institutions, according to T.H.E. Journal (via Brand Noise).

Social bookmarking lets users save and categorize their favorite websites and share them with a community. Scholar lets Blackboard users save and classify bookmarks and searches as well as share resources with faculty, students and administrators from other institutions.

The service is also open to the public at scholar.com. It adapts services, such as those offered by companies like del.icio.us, for a demographic that would greatly benefit from an open exchange of ideas: students and academics.