Flat World Knowledge, the disruptive open-license textbook developer that has attracted investment from both Random House and Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, is apparently changing their fundamental model as of January 1. While the site still contains their promise to students that “all of our books are available to read in their entirety, completely free online!” a post from the National Association of College Stores says that free access to browser-based textbooks is going away. Flat World CEO Jeff Shelstad tells them, “While free access goes away, our mission to be fair and affordable remains as strong as ever.” Their all […]
Higher Ed
Wiley Buys Online Learning Service Provider for $220 Million
Wiley is investing in online learning services, agreeing to purchase private-held Chicago-based Deltak.edu for $220 million. They say it will “significantly accelerate Wiley’s digital learning strategy and diversify the company’s service offerings to include operational and academic solutions for higher education institutions.” Deltak provides provides technology platforms and services that support over 100 online learning programs. The company had sales of $54 million for the just-ended fiscal year, and the deal is expected to close by the end of the month.
Textbook Time: Kno Adds K-12 eTexts and Amazon Joins Book Rental Market
Back to school time looms, which means more textbook announcements. Start-up Kno is expanding from their base in college textbooks to the K-12 textbook market. They offer one-year rentals for $9.99 or less (though any parent knows that trying to “finally stop their kids from carrying their heavy backpacks to and from school” is a pipe dream). Their first K-12 digital textbooks come from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. In a separate press release, Amazon announced that they are finally renting physical textbooks to college students, just like most of the major competitors in the market (from Barnes & Noble College, Nebraska […]
Ingram’s Vital Source Pairs with Blackboard for Broad eTextbook Offering
Ingram’s Vital Source unit will work with Blackboard, the leading education learning management system (LMS), for an expanded electronic textbook offering. Blackboard will incorporate the Vital Source etextbook platform, comprising over 80,000 titles, directly into their LMS, giving students and faculty easy access. Vital Source coo Kent Freeman says in the announcement, “With the integration, there would be no extra software for users to install, no separate logins and passwords to remember. You get immediate access to the digital copies of your textbooks, and they are an integral part of your Blackboard Learn courses.” Faculty will be able to select […]
eNews: Macmillan’s $100 Million+ for Acquisitions; TED Launches Reading App/Store
Former Questia founder Troy Williams, who joined Macmillan as general manager of New Ventures in fall 2010, tells Pando Daily that Holtzbrinck has allocated something over $100 million for him to purchase “ed-tech startups that will eventually be the future of Macmillan…as Macmillan transitions out of the content business and into educational software and services.” Williams indicates to them he “plans to do five deals this year and 10 to 15 over the course of the next five years.” Acquisitions so far include Prep-U, a student “quizzing engine,” i-Clicker, a mobile classroom polling company, and most recently Educational Benchmarking, a […]
People, Etc.
Matthew Ballast has been promoted to acting director of publicity for Grand Central Publishing, replacing Jennifer Romanello, who recently departed the company. Rachel Burley has been appointed vp, director of open access at Wiley, where she will facilitate the identification of open access opportunities and lead the development of products, policy, technology, processes, sales, and marketing initiatives necessary to provide support to authors. She has been at the company for five years, most recently as vp, publisher for current protocols. At S&S Children’s, Jacqui Hudson has been named ebook developer and specialist for the Free Press, Aladdin, Simon Spotlight, Paula […]