Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google


VitalSource, Verba to Join Forces to Deliver Affordable Course Materials

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.

About the Author

Sri Ravipati is Web producer for THE Journal and Campus Technology. She can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • woman surrounded by virtual hologram icons

    Beyond AI Adoption: Designing Learning for an Age of Abundant Intelligence

    Higher education was designed for a world in which access to knowledge, expertise, feedback, mentorship, and authentic learning experiences were inherently scarce. By making many forms of intelligence increasingly abundant, AI is inherently redefining the existing paradigm.

  • Hootsuite

    Beyond the Feed: How Higher Ed Turns Social Media Into a Measurable Enrollment Engine

    More than half of prospective students research programs on social media before visiting a university website, and nearly half will skip applying to a school that looks inactive online. Hootsuite, the all-in-one social OS platform trusted by more than 2,000 higher education institutions, helps campus teams turn everyday posts into measurable outcomes, from applications to alumni giving.

  • businessman holding tablet with holographic AI icons

    Google Moves AI Agents into the Mainstream

    At its recent I/O developer conference, Google presented artificial intelligence agents not as a distant research project, but as a product strategy spanning Search, personal assistants, productivity software, developer tools, and smart glasses.

  • digital brain with network connections

    Microsoft Moving to Internally Developed AI Models in Office Apps

    Microsoft is reportedly using its own in-house artificial intelligence models to handle some workloads in Excel and Outlook, offering new evidence that the company is moving its AI strategy beyond model development and into large-scale cost reduction.