Pearson Announces OpenClass Technology Partners

First Full-Featured Learning Environment that's Free, Easy-to-Use and Scalable

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Oct 19, 2011, 10:00 ET

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Pearson, the world's leading learning company, today announced that several technology partners have joined OpenClass, the new learning management system (LMS) that's delivered from the Cloud. The announcement was made at EDUCAUSE 2011, the annual gathering of the world's education technology leaders.

OpenClass is easy to use and completely free. There are no hardware, licensing or hosting costs, thus enabling widespread adoption of new learning approaches that encourage interaction within the classroom and around the world. OpenClass integrates seamlessly with Google Apps for Education™ and is available in the Google Apps Marketplace™, Google's online storefront for Google Apps™ products and services. With single sign-on and a unified navigation bar, instructors and students can launch OpenClass from within Google Apps or access their Google applications from OpenClass.

"OpenClass is a key part of our mission to increase access, achievement and affordability in higher education," said Matt Leavy, Chief Executive Officer of Pearson eCollege. "We're thrilled to have these technology partners collaborate with us to advance the capabilities of OpenClass. By leveraging the rich data and social foundations of the OpenClass platform, we'll provide educators and students with a richer, more personal and more connected learning experience."

Pearson has reached out to technology leaders as part of its effort to enable institutions to customize OpenClass to meet their specific needs. These technology and content partners include CourseSmart, ProQuest, Panopto, Kaltura, Respondus, Turnitin, Learning Objects, SoftChalk, Foliotek, Biometric Signature ID, SmarterServices, Acxiom, OpenStudy and Smarthinking. Pearson will continue to expand the network and is actively pursuing additional technology and content partnerships to support institutional needs.

"OpenClass truly embraces CourseSmart's mission of connecting content producers with content users in the higher education space," said Sean Devine, Chief Executive Officer of CourseSmart. "Through OpenClass, institutions will be able to provide their students and instructors with seamless access to all of their digital course materials, including our 20,000 eTextbook and eResources titles."

"Turnitin and OpenClass share a commitment to providing accessible and affordable educational tools to institutions worldwide," said Sally Elliott, Chief Operating Officer at iParadigms. "As a longstanding partner of Pearson LearningStudio, we look forward to delivering our cloud-based services as an integrated part of this new platform."

In addition to the technology partners, nine select institutions are OpenClass design partners, including Abilene Christian University, Arizona State University, Central Piedmont Community College, West Virginia University at Parkersburg, Monash University, Kentucky Community & Technical College System, Rice University, the University of Wisconsin Extension and Columbia University. Many of these institutions are already teaching courses on OpenClass this fall.

About Pearson

Pearson, the world's leading learning company, has global reach and market-leading businesses in education, business information and consumer publishing (NYSE: PSO).

Media Contact: Susan Aspey, [email protected] or (800) 745-8489

SOURCE Pearson