Last month I shared the system announcement that the Cal State Online (CSO) initiative is finished. Despite the phrasing of “re-visioning” and the retention of the name, the concept of a standalone unit to deliver and market online programs for the system is gone. Based on documents obtained by e-Literate through a public records request:1 […]
Kuali For-Profit: Change is an indicator of bigger issues
On Friday the Kuali Foundation announced the creation of a new for-profit entity to be led by the former CTO of Instructure, Joel Dehlin. Jeff Young at the Chronicle described the change: Ten years ago, a group of universities started a collaborative software project touted as an alternative to commercial software companies, which were criticized as […]
On ECAR data and ed tech purgatory
Recently I wrote a post about many ed tech products being stuck in pilots without large-scale adoption. In our consulting work Michael and I often help survey institutions to discover what technologies are being used within courses, and typically the only technologies that are used by a majority of faculty members or in a majority of […]
D2L raises $85 million but growth claims defy logic
Yesterday D2L announced a second round of investment, this time raising $85 million (a mix of debt and equity) to go with their $80 million round two years ago (see EDUKWEST for a useful roundup of news and article links). While raising $165 million is an impressive feat, does this funding give us new information on […]
Pilots: Too many ed tech innovations stuck in purgatory
Steve Kolowich wrote an article yesterday in the Chronicle that described the use of LectureTools, a student engagement and assessment application created by faculty member Perry Sampson at the University Michigan. These two paragraphs jumped out at me. The professor has had some success getting his colleagues to try using LectureTools in large introductory courses. In the spring, […]
Federal Reserve Board backs up e-Literate in criticism of Brookings report on student debt
I have been very critical of the Brookings Institution report on student debt, particularly in my post “To see how illogical the Brookings Institution report on student loans is, just read the executive summary”. D’oh! It turns out that real borrowers with real tax brackets paying off off real loans are having real problems. The […]
Update on 2U: First full quarterly earnings and insight into model
2U, the online service provider that went public in the spring, just released its financial report for the first full quarter of operations as a public company. The company beat estimates on total revenue and also lost less money than expected. Overall, it was a strong performance (see WSJ for basic summary or actual quarterly […]