Cengage Learning and Celebrus Technologies Partner to Harness the Power of Big Data in Education Technology

Partnership will explore behavioral results and provide a better understanding of how students and instructors use digital course materials in the classroom

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Cengage Learning

May 08, 2014, 10:30 ET

BOSTON, May 8, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Cengage Learning, a leading global educational content, technology and services company for the higher education and K-12, professional and library markets, today announced a partnership with Celebrus Technologies, a provider of tagging-free multi-channel digital big data software that captures rich behavioral data to understand how customers are interacting with the company's digital service offerings. As the first major US publisher to work with Celebrus, this partnership puts Cengage Learning at the forefront of the industry in understanding how big data can inform student product usage, learning objectives and learning outcomes.

Cengage Learning's online teaching and learning resources – CengageNOW, Aplia and MindTap – will be the first products integrated with the Celebrus technology. By observing overall student and professor behavior, such as log-in time, most visited pages and length of time spent on a page, Cengage Learning will gain a complete profile to better understand customers' needs and wants. This collected data will then feed into research and development in an effort to improve upon existing products and create new ones that will increase student engagement and deliver a superior learning experience.

"At Cengage Learning, we know that data has the potential to play an extremely large role in education technology," said Stuart Hayes, SVP of Customer Understanding, Cengage Learning. "Marking an industry leading shift in long-standing practice, Cengage is putting students first in the development of educational materials. As we integrate this technology into our digital offerings, we are essentially opening the window to better see how students are using these products. The better we know and understand our end-users base, the more qualified we will be to create products that will delight them. We use student input, testing and feedback to teach us how to best engage students and it helps us to improve upon pain points and amplify favored features – which will, in turn, result in a greatly improved user experience."

Once data is captured in real-time, Cengage Learning will seek emerging trends among the behavioral patterns that relate directly to student outcomes. This will allow developers to design and refine better products to help students as a whole.

Katharine Hulls, VP Marketing, Celebrus Technologies, commented, "This is an exciting time for Celebrus as we work closely with Cengage Learning to facilitate a better understanding of their customer base. As our first US publishing partner, we are excited to see how Cengage Learning will use our technology to deepen learning insight and improve outcomes in the education space. Together, we will be able to take digital big data technology and its impact far beyond what was provided by traditional tag-based solutions, and create a greater understanding of their efficacy and success to their clients."

For more information on Cengage Learning's digital offerings, please visit www.cengage.com. To learn more about Celebrus Technologies and the company's big data offerings, please visit www.celebrus.com.

About Cengage Learning
Cengage Learning is a leading educational content, technology, and services company for the higher education and K-12, professional and library markets worldwide. The company provides superior content, personalized services and course-driven digital solutions that accelerate student engagement and transform the learning experience. Cengage Learning is headquartered in Boston, MA with operations in more than 20 countries around the world. For more, visit: www.cengage.com.

About Celebrus Technologies
Celebrus Technologies (www.celebrus.com) enables organizations to understand their individual customers' interactions across the digital channels they own, including websites, mobile apps and social media. Celebrus' award winning tagging-free digital big data software then feeds this data into a wide variety of big data technologies in real-time. Celebrus' global blue chip clients use this highly granular data to power advanced customer analytics and real-time personalization and to drive actions that maximize revenue, marketing effectiveness and brand loyalty. Celebrus partners with world-leading technology companies to provide integrated solutions that meet critical business goals. Celebrus also has global reach with their fast and flexible digital data and real-time personalization platforms available from resellers across the world.

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SOURCE Cengage Learning