Industry News

University-Led Unizin Acquires Digital Text Platform Company Courseload

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 07/30/15

Two education technology organizations have become one. Recently, Unizin acquired Courseload to add employees and technology to its university-funded efforts to build the tools for managing all aspects of digital teaching and learning.

Unizin, which is housed within Internet2, consists of a group of schools funding creation of a set of applications to replace existing campus systems licensed from learning management system providers and other companies. Housed in Austin, the consortium includes big names: the University of Michigan, the University of Florida, Indiana University and eight other institutional members. Each member contributes to funding Unizin's work.

Courseload was a company that created an e-text reader platform and additional utilities for delivering digital content, whether it consisted of open educational resources, publisher materials or faculty-compiled "course packs." The buyout provides Unizin with Courseload Engage, an online learning and collaboration tool that delivers textbooks and other resources in digital form that can be searched, highlighted, bookmarked and annotated.

Indiana U was an early adopter of Courseload. The institution put it in place to support a five-year e-text project. According to Anastasia Morrone, associate vice president of learning technologies, "The inclusion of Courseload data will increase analytics capabilities and facilitate opportunities for faculty collaboration and content sharing across Unizin institutions."

Unizin was drawn to Courseload, noted Chief Operating Officer Robin Littleworth in a prepared statement, because it "lends itself well to the Unizin services roadmap for content and analytics." The integration of the software "will provide a complete path for faculty to create content, deliver it across a range of student-preferred devices and gain insights to improve instruction."