article thumbnail

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. This new development process goes into effect next year, when “we will have a substantial number of titles that we will apply this new model to,” says Pearson CEO John Fallon.

Pearson 163
article thumbnail

Pearson Bets on Adaptive Learning (Again) With $25M Acquisition of Smart Sparrow

Edsurge

Last week, Pearson announced it paid $25 million to acquire Smart Sparrow’s technology, in a move that the publisher says will bolster the digital infrastructure that will soon support all its future higher-education offerings. As part of the deal, most of its staff will join Pearson. million in venture capital.

Pearson 98
Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

What a Homework Help Site’s Move to Host Open Educational Resources Could Mean

Edsurge

In May, the homework-help site that relies on student-generated content, Course Hero, dipped its toes into freely available, openly licensed alternatives known as Open Educational Resources, or OER, course materials. This was the company’s “first foray” into OER, and it is still figuring out how the OER fits, Morris says. “I

OER 131
article thumbnail

Pearson, an Investor in Knewton, Is ‘Phasing Out’ Partnership on Adaptive Products

Edsurge

Now one of its most high-profile content partners and investors, Pearson , is pulling back. Pearson will no longer use Knewton’s adaptive learning engine for some of its digital offerings. The retrenchment delivers a setback to Knewton, for whom Pearson was the first—and most visible—partner.

Knewton 78
article thumbnail

Startup Hopes to Shake Up Textbook Market By Encouraging a Mix-and-Match of Courseware

Edsurge

based company, called Argos Education, is that the way textbooks are created and revised is due for a reset. But last year Pearson acquired the assets of Smart Sparrow , leading ASU to look for an alternative platform to deliver its offerings, which had also been growing in use. A key premise of the Lexington, Mass.-based

Pearson 132
article thumbnail

Hitting Reset, Knewton Tries New Strategy: Competing With Textbook Publishers

Edsurge

Knewton drew heaps of hype and investment by promising to provide artificial-intelligence technology to major textbook companies to make their content more adaptive. Now the company has pivoted, and it is poised to formally announce its own online courseware that will compete head-to-head with those publishing giants.

Knewton 115
article thumbnail

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.

Knewton 137