Digital Textbooks

VitalSource, Verba to Join Forces to Deliver Affordable Course Materials

• By Sri Ravipati
• 02/22/17

VitalSource, a division of Ingram Content Group that provides educational content for more than 1,250 higher education institutions worldwide, plans to acquire digital course materials software provider Verba Software.

The San Francisco-based Verba developed tools that supports campus bookstores and help students save money on textbooks and other course materials. According to its website, Verba began as a project by Harvard University students with a goal “to tackle textbook affordability through radical transparency.” Now, the startup serves more than 350 campus bookstores and has approximately 3.1 million student shoppers each term.

Verba’s offerings include:

• Collect: An adoptions platform that enables faculty members to easily and quickly submit their textbook adoptions;
• Connect: A platform that uses the inclusive access model and delivers digital course materials to students on the first day of class;
• Compete: Uses marketplace data to categorize books in a catalog; and
• Compare: A price comparison tool.

A Letter of Intent has been sent and if acquired, Verba will add its “inclusive access, analytics and white-label ecommerce while bringing strength in adoptions management and pricing transparency” to VitalSource’s offerings, according to a news release. Following the acquisition, Verba will join Ingram Content Group’s 3,4000 associates worldwide in “providing digital learning solutions and courseware.”

“We plan to deepen our existing integration with Verba Connect, their inclusive-access platform, to provide institutions and college stores more options and opportunities to help students and faculty,” said VitalSource COO Pep Carrera in the release. “Students will save money, institutions will ensure students have learning materials on the first day of class, and stores will be at the center of the experience.”

For more information, visit the VitalSource site.