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Can a For-Profit, Venture-Backed Company Keep OER Free—and Be Financially Sustainable?

Edsurge

New and traditional publishers are trying to offer alternatives such as open educational resources (OER), or freely downloadable and adaptable learning materials. But some providers of OER still ask for fees in return, and that has advocates concerned. The company is also banking on authors and adopters to check for quality themselves.

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A Thinking Person’s Guide to EdTech News (2017 Week 33 Edition)

Doug Levin

The 2017 EdNext Poll on School Reform: Digital Learning , which offers my sense of what those interested in K-12 educational technology can and should take away from this annual polling about schools. A Thinking Person’s Guide to EdTech News (2017 Week 33 Edition). Strong opinions may be weakly held.

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How an OER Rookie Dove Deep Into a Zero-Cost Textbook Degree Program

Edsurge

The initiative intends to create degree pathways with courses that only use open educational resources, known as OER, so students don’t have to spend money on class materials. College of the Canyons’ history with OER starts before Anagnonson’s dabble, however. Using OER in those courses, she added, “really started out of necessity.”

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Tailor-ED Raises $1.6 Million to Bring Differentiated OER to More Students

Edsurge

At that time, the company only offered math materials for grades three to six. The startup’s origins trace back to Stanford University, where Yavne and Yael Haramaty, Tailor-ED's co-founder and chief technology officer, met as students in spring 2017. Tailor-ED graduated from the Y Combinator startup accelerator earlier this year.

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Pearson Signals Major Shift From Print by Making All Textbook Updates ‘Digital First’

Edsurge

The biggest education company in the world is moving away from a production model that has been one of the main drivers in the rising cost of textbooks. The average price for a Pearson digital textbook subscription for a semester is $40, according to the company. But the company is not cutting the cord with print. “We

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Wiley to Acquire Knewton’s Assets, Marking an End to an Expensive Startup Journey

Edsurge

Publicly-traded companies like Wiley generally share the price of their acquisitions, unless the financial impact is considered immaterial to the buyer’s bottom line. The New York City-based company has raised more than $180 million in investment capital. In its latest fiscal year earnings summary (for Nov. 1, 2018 to Jan.

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Are K-12 Curriculum Tools a Smart Investment? What Investors and Our Data Say

Edsurge

In conversations with edtech investors, some reported that the K-12 market has seen an influx of instructional content, particularly in the form of open educational resources (OERs). OERs are openly-licensed educational materials that can be downloaded, modified and shared with others to help support student learning.

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