In his recent article in EdSurge, Jeff Young (formerly of the Chronicle) profiles an emerging fringe world of post-secondary education where “Nanodegrees,” “MicroMasters,” and “MicroDegrees” are proliferating. Companies like Udacity and edX are looking to stake out territory in this emerging market and trademarking new degree types is one way they’re attempting to do that. […]
Business & Economics
The "Business & Economics" category covers the business aspects of ed tech, including the financial health and business models of individual companies, economic aspects of selling in education that shape the available offerings, and coverage of markets and investment.
Instructure’s Current Market Position
With the proliferation of so many privately funded educational technology companies, the quarterly earnings call of a publicly traded company like Instructure is a rare opportunity to get a detailed look at company performance and hear directly from executive leadership as they respond to analysts’ questions. Sometimes those responses can be guarded, at other times […]
About That Cengage OER Survey
Last month Cengage Learning released a white paper titled “Open Educational Resources (OER) and the Evolving Higher Education Landscape” where the headline called out expected increases in OER adoption:
“Open Educational Resources (OER) in higher education have the potential to triple in use as primary courseware over the next five years.”
“Open Educational Resources (OER) in higher education have the potential to triple in use as primary courseware over the next five years.”
PEARSONalized Learning
I have been pretty relentless in mocking Knewton CEO Jose Ferriera for his “robot tutor in the sky” description of the company’s adaptive learning product. And I pledge to continue this proud tradition. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. But the truth is that most of the vendors in this space, both startups and traditional […]
Educational Software Patents: A Call to Vendors
A number of people responding to the Chronicle’s article on the Elsevier patent asked me to write something about it. For those of you who haven’t been following ed tech for at least a decade or just haven’t been following e-Literate for that long, the main reason that people who weren’t my mom started reading this […]
Exclusive: Worldwide LMS market size expected to triple in 5 years . . . or get cut in half
Well these two reports will help us narrow down our estimates of the future LMS market size [emphasis added]. According to a new market research report, “Learning Management System Market by Application, Delivery Mode (Distance Learning and Instructor-Led Training), Deployment (On-Premises and Cloud), User Type (Academic and Corporate), Vertical, and Region – Global Forecast to […]
Marketing Claims From Adaptive Learning Vendors As Barrier To Adoption
We have been critical here at e-Literate when we find ed tech vendors making spurious marketing claims, and Michael in particular has parlayed this into well-deserved NPR fame. But these answers from OSU go further and suggest that marketing claims are harming the vendors themselves. Our primary concern is whether faculty and staff have accurate information to support their own decision-making, and not the financial health of vendors, but this view of self-limitation is an interesting one to consider.