VitalSource and Blackboard Announce Collaboration to Power Inclusive Access Model in the LMS

WASHINGTON, Jan. 30, 2018 -- Blackboard Inc., a leading education technology company for teaching, learning and student engagement, today announced a new collaboration with VitalSource®, the leading “Inclusive Access” provider.

This new collaboration provides students with seamless access to course materials in an Inclusive Access model within Blackboard’s leading learning management systems (LMS), Blackboard Learn and Moodlerooms. The collaboration expands upon the existing relationship between both companies and makes VitalSource’s extensive catalog of digital textbooks and publisher learning platforms readily available, while also lowering the cost of course materials for students.

The pairing is a unique collaboration between a digital content provider and a major LMS. It will provide deeply integrated workflows and a range of analytics tools to help solve a variety of fundamental content delivery problems for students, faculty, administrators, campus stores, and publishers. Features include: seamlessly delivering materials directly in the LMS; providing students with the ability to purchase digital course materials at a significantly lower cost; and ensuring that all students automatically have access to the correct course content on or before the first day of class. In the Inclusive Access model, faculty-selected course content is made available in the LMS at the start of a course, and the costs can be included in students’ tuition and fees.

Additional benefits of the expanded collaboration include enabling institutions using Blackboard Learn or Moodlerooms to deliver VitalSource analytical dashboards in the LMS to better understand the full scope of students’ study habits.

“This innovative collaboration has the potential to affect every educational institution and student,” said Phillip Miller, Vice President of Teaching and Learning at Blackboard. “This collaboration will provide access to course materials to all students within our world class learning environments on day one of class, and drastically reduce costs, helping eliminate a fundamental barrier to student success.”

VitalSource provides students and educators access to the world’s largest catalog of digital learning materials which are consumed on Bookshelf®, the company’s exclusive eTextbook platform. Bookshelf’s interactive study and analytics tools give users experiences and insights that cannot be achieved with print textbooks. All content consumed in Bookshelf can be integrated easily into courses within Blackboard Learn or Moodlerooms for seamless student and instructor access and is available online and offline.

“For an Inclusive Access program to scale, one of the key ingredients is making sure that students have a seamless experience,” said Mike Hale, VP of Education at VitalSource. “By being Blackboard’s only integration for Inclusive Access , VitalSource will now be able to almost universally remove access codes, and other major operational burdens that campus stores, publishers, and institutions have dealt with, making it easier for our customers to deliver student success and affordability.”

The integration is expected to be available for clients of both companies in the U.S. in spring 2018.

About Blackboard Inc.

Our mission is to partner with the global education community to enable learner and institutional success, leveraging innovative technologies and services. With an unmatched understanding of the world of the learner, the most comprehensive student-success solutions, and the greatest capacity for innovation, Blackboard is education’s partner in change.

About VitalSource | get.vitalsource.com

VitalSource Technologies LLC, part of Ingram Content Group, is improving the learning experience by making it easier to create and deliver effective and affordable content. The preferred choice among educational institutions and companies for digital learning materials, VitalSource® helps over 1,000 educational content providers create and deliver seamless interactive learning experiences through its exclusive Bookshelf® platform to millions of learners at 7,000 institutions. Bookshelf users opened more than 20 million digital textbooks last year and read more than 3.4 billion pages. Contact: Elizabeth Fielding 615-321-3110 / elizabeth@tsgnashville.com