PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Pearson, the
world's leading learning company, today announced that several
technology partners have joined OpenClass, the new learning
management system (LMS) that's delivered from the Cloud. The
announcement was made at EDUCAUSE 2011, the annual gathering of the
world's education technology leaders.
OpenClass is easy to use and completely free. There are no
hardware, licensing or hosting costs, thus enabling widespread
adoption of new learning approaches that encourage interaction
within the classroom and around the world. OpenClass
integrates seamlessly with Google Apps for Education™ and is
available in the Google Apps Marketplace™, Google's online
storefront for Google Apps™ products and services. With single
sign-on and a unified navigation bar, instructors and students can
launch OpenClass from within Google Apps or access their Google
applications from OpenClass.
"OpenClass is a key part of our mission to increase access,
achievement and affordability in higher education," said
Matt Leavy, Chief Executive Officer
of Pearson eCollege. "We're thrilled to have these technology
partners collaborate with us to advance the capabilities of
OpenClass. By leveraging the rich data and social foundations
of the OpenClass platform, we'll provide educators and students
with a richer, more personal and more connected learning
experience."
Pearson has reached out to technology leaders as part of its
effort to enable institutions to customize OpenClass to meet their
specific needs. These technology and content partners include
CourseSmart, ProQuest, Panopto, Kaltura, Respondus, Turnitin,
Learning Objects, SoftChalk, Foliotek, Biometric Signature ID,
SmarterServices, Acxiom, OpenStudy and Smarthinking. Pearson
will continue to expand the network and is actively pursuing
additional technology and content partnerships to support
institutional needs.
"OpenClass truly embraces CourseSmart's mission of connecting
content producers with content users in the higher education
space," said Sean Devine, Chief
Executive Officer of CourseSmart. "Through OpenClass,
institutions will be able to provide their students and instructors
with seamless access to all of their digital course materials,
including our 20,000 eTextbook and eResources titles."
"Turnitin and OpenClass share a commitment to providing
accessible and affordable educational tools to institutions
worldwide," said Sally Elliott,
Chief Operating Officer at iParadigms. "As a longstanding
partner of Pearson LearningStudio, we look forward to delivering
our cloud-based services as an integrated part of this new
platform."
In addition to the technology partners, nine select institutions
are OpenClass design partners, including Abilene Christian University, Arizona State University, Central Piedmont Community College, West Virginia University at Parkersburg, Monash
University, Kentucky Community
& Technical College System, Rice
University, the University of
Wisconsin Extension and Columbia
University. Many of these institutions are already
teaching courses on OpenClass this fall.
About Pearson
Pearson, the world's leading learning company, has global reach
and market-leading businesses in education, business information
and consumer publishing (NYSE: PSO).
Media Contact: Susan Aspey,
susan.aspey@pearson.com or (800) 745-8489
SOURCE Pearson