The ed-tech market is
experiencing a lot of churn right now, as charted by the 2017 Higher Education
Technology Landscape Report by higher-ed advisory service Eduventures, which
tracks the activity of more than 500 vendors across 40 market segments. This
year’s report drew on about 100 fewer vendors thanks to consolidation and
closings.
Eduventures, which is owned by the National Research Center for College & University Admissions, tallied the most mergers,
acquisitions, and consolidations among textbook, digital course material, and
courseware companies; online course providers; learning management systems;
learning analytics platforms; and constituent relationship management
platforms. For online course providers and online program managers, the report
saw “almost as many vendor options as there are academic programs or
pedagogical models from which to choose.”
It also noted that cloud-based
solutions are now nearly ubiquitous in higher ed for learning management
systems, email, and educational apps, while adoption of cloud-based student
information systems (SIS) is trending upward “as many institutions start moving
critical operations and business processes to cloud providers.”
Adaptive learning and online
program managers are witnessing “disproportionately high” growth, according to
the report, while courseware and learning-analytics platforms undergo a wave of
consolidation.
