Dive Summary:
- Blackboard is increasing its "online program management services" investment, joining the competition among a growing number of organizations targeting colleges attempting to invigorate their brands in the crowded online higher education field.
- Blackboard's approach is to offer "flexibility," using its ample expertise and resources to help institutions decide what parts of their online infrastructure they'd like to handle themselves without forcing them into contracts covering an array of services.
- The move is in line with Blackboard's plan in recent years to prepare for a future where its flagship product, the learning management system Learn, is not responsible for the bulk of its higher education revenue.
From the article:
Blackboard has become the latest company to get into the business of helping colleges and universities build online programs. The company, which built its education technology empire on selling software and implementation support, has upped investment in its "online program management services" in an effort to compete with a growing number of entities that are taking aim at the many colleges that are scrambling to reassert, or reinvent, their brands on the increasingly crowded frontier of online higher education. ...