Helping colleges and universities across the country
take their academic programs online has become a growth industry. Now, those
start-ups are the target for larger companies to snatch up.
John Wiley & Sons started an October buying spree
by paying $220 million for Deltak.edu LLC, which develops and supports online
degree and certificate programs.
“The acquisition of Deltak will extend Wiley’s global
education trajectory into a high-growth segment of the market and bring
additional expertise to the organization in such areas as curriculum design,
student recruitment services, and next-generation technology solutions,” said
Joseph Heider, senior vice president of global education at Wiley, for an
article in The Wall Street Journal.
Blackboard, known for its learning management systems
for higher education, followed by announcing it would increase its investments
into its own online course-development and management services. Blackboard
plans to attract clients with an approach that offers more options from which
to choose.
“It’s more of an a la carte approach, where [colleges]
can pick and choose capabilities they want and not get into this big,
comprehensive, long-term commitment where a lot of them are worried about
losing institutional control,” said John Kannapell, vice president of the
Blackboard online program management department, in an article in Inside Higher Education.
Pearson Higher Education then joined the fray with the purchase
of EmbanetCompass for $650 million. EmbanetCompass, created by the 2010 merger
of Embanet and Compass Knowledge Group, is the largest player in the online
course-management field.
The purchase follows Pearson’s move to launch a free, cloud-based learning-management system called OpenClass in 2012, and after teaming with software firm Knewton to replace its software packages with new ones that adapt to learners.
“As more and more schools face budget cuts, they’re
looking to online education as a way to increase access, achievement, and
affordability,” Trace Don Kilburn, CEO of Pearson Learning Solutions, told The Chronicle of Higher Education.
“We see this as a strong area of growth.”
