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This blog is dedicated to the topics of Course materials, Innovation, and Technology in Education. it is intended as an information source for the college store industry, or anyone interested in how course materials are changing. Suggestions for discussion topics or news stories are welcome.

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Friday, March 10, 2017

Consolidation Roiling Ed Tech

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.

The segments showing rising competition include student-success and     -retention solutions, e-portfolios, social media platforms, online program managers, and business intelligence and analytics platforms.