Cengage Learning
Print isn't exactly dead in the textbook industry, but it's not the revenue engine it used to be for Boston-based education content company Cengage Learning.
The company - which last year announced it made its Boston office its headquarters from Stamford, Conn. after emerging from bankruptcy last year - has been transforming itself over the past couple of years from a textbook publisher to a product-focused company with a tech concentration.
Leading that tech transformation is George Moore, the company's chief technology officer, who previously worked at medical publishing company Elsevier Health Science in Philadelphia
In response to extensive user testing and usage data, Gale, part of Cengage Learning, will introduce a number of enhancements to its most widely-used product lines - GVRL, InfoTrac and In Context, including the optimization for mobile devices through responsive design.
"Know your audience" is a common maxim among writers, one that pushes them to deliver the most useful or entertaining content they can for their readers. Yet knowing one's audience in a precise way has been a difficulty for book publishers up until fairly recently. Except
Public libraries face challenges demonstrating their value to the communities and stakeholders they serve - just 22% of Americans say they know most or all of the services provided by their public library. To help libraries overcome these barriers, Gale, part of Cengage Learning, has added three new applications to Analytics On Demand, the first affordable big data analytics solution for public libraries.
Today Boundless launched another new way for entrepreneurial educators and thought leaders to engage students in a more modern way. The company's newest software opens up its content creation platform for authors to create textbooks that can be accessed through Boundless, which has been used by more than 3 million students and educators. Boundless's "new standard" for academic publishing is a major step in the company's expanding vision for changing the face of what has been a (financially) burdensome aspect of higher education: the existing, expensive academic textbook cartel.
For the fourth consecutive year, a highly regarded studies just released from BISG tracks and analyzes the key trends in how students and faculty members acquire, assign, teach, and consume educational content in multiple media formats. Student Attitudes Toward Content in Higher Education, Volume 4, is now available as a digital report alongside a complementary study, Faculty Attitudes Toward Content in Higher Education Volume 3.
Don't look now, but textbook publishers are trying to become software companies. And tech startups are trying to outmaneuver these giants to win the future of educational content and tools. It's one of the big trends in edtech and digital media.
Indeed, digital publishing has "fundamentally changed every aspect of what we are doing with our content," says Michael Hansen, the CEO of Cengage Learning, an education publisher that recently moved headquarters from Connecticut to Boston, while also opening a new office in techie-rich San Francisco.
More than 400 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. e-books are coming to Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL). GVRL is the e-book platform offered by Gale, a leading publisher of research and education resources for libraries, schools and businesses and part of Cengage Learning.
Stamford, CT - April 14, 2014 - Cengage Learning, a leading educational content, software and services company, today named its Boston, MA office as the new corporate headquarters for its global business. In an unprecedented move, the company is establishing its central operations in the Channel Center, located in Boston's Innovation District.
Cengage Learning emerged from bankruptcy on Tuesday, returning to the textbook market with less debt and more funding, but also with the same challenges facing the academic publishing industry.
Saddled with $5.8 billion in debt, Cengage filed for bankruptcy protection in July 2013 as part of its restructuring efforts. The publisher reached a settlement with its creditors this February, eliminating $4 billion of the debt, and secured an additional $1.75 billion in exit funding.