Pearson plans an education portal

Internet Strategies for Education Markets: The Heller Report, April, 2000

Pearson plc (London, England) has recently announced a number of agreements to accelerate the development of an online education portal. The Pearson education network will draw on content from Pearson companies and other partners. Initial development will focus on offerings for K-12 schools, including professional development for teachers. Content for consumers, says spokesperson Wendy Spiegel, will follow quickly. The envisioned network of resources will eventually serve elementary school through adult learning.

A far-reaching content agreement with America Online Inc. is in initial stages for marketing the portal and for sharing and creating content. Pearson has also made investments in and strategic partnerships with SCORE!

Learning, Inc., (www.eSCORE.com), Edgate.com, Inc. (www.edgate.com) and Blackboard, Inc. (www.blackboard.com). Specific plans for the portal and for these agreements are thus far uncharted. Spiegel says the company hopes to have some visible evidence of the content partnerships for the upcoming school year.

Generally, Pearson and AOL intend to establish a relationship in which Pearson's education network will be the preferred supplier of educational content and online learning tools for AOL. One goal of the agreement is likely to be to expand AOL@school's presence in the school market. The companies will also explore co-development.

Pearson will take an equity stake of at least 9%, in SCORE!, a subsidiary of Kaplan, Inc. (New York, NY). That investment is valued at around $20 million. Pearson and SCORE! already have a relationship in which the SCORE! after-school centers use curriculum from Pearson's Computer Curriculum Corp. (Sunnyvale, CA). The two companies will also work together to develop curriculum for the new online service, eSCORE.com (see ISEM, Feb., 2000). Additionally, Pearson's education network will promote eSCORE.com.

With a 10% equity position in Edgate.com, creator of the Copernicus Education Gateway, Pearson and Copernicus will share content and services. Copernicus offers a customizable gateway to educational content. Features include SchoolNotes for parent and student access, the Copernicus Curriculum Matrix for teachers to correlate Internet resources and lesson plans with state standards, and fundraising features.

Pearson's relationship with Blackboard, developer of the online learning platform by the same name, will strengthen Pearson's higher education offerings and help Blackboard.com expand to K-12 markets.

These new players will be added to Pearson's many other resources. Pearson formed in November of 1998 through the merger of Simon & Schuster and Addison Wesley Longman Education (AWL). Pearson's elementary school businesses include Scott Foresman, Silver Burdett Ginn, Pearson Learning, CCC, and AWL Kids with KnowZone. Secondary school properties include Prentice Hall School Division and Globe Fearon. Higher education companies in addition to AWL are Allyn & Bacon and Prentice Hall College. International holdings include Pearson Education divisions in Asia, Australia, Canada, Latin America and a group for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Pearson also owns Pearson Education ELT. Pearson also identifies itself as the world's leading technology publisher, with imprints that include Que, Sams, Prentice Hall, Cisco Press, Adobe Press, New Riders, Peachpit and Addison Wesley. Outside of the education group, Pearson has the Financial Times Group, the Penguin Group and Pearson Television (see www.pearson.com /prod ucts /index.htm).

A mix of individual subscriptions, school site licenses, e-commerce and advertising revenues will earn revenue for the portal. Advertising will not appear on the site when accessed from schools.

Headland Digital Media (San Francisco), Pearson's in-house digital publishing company, is responsible for overall concept and technical development of the education network. Bill Oldsey, senior vp, president of educational technology group, is responsible for strategic partnerships. The brand identity for the portal has not yet been announced.

CCC Puts SuccessMaker on iMind

The upcoming portal will be one of a number of Internet channels used by CCC, says Jim Bowler, CCC vp marketing. He says the company believes that all schools will eventually want their content delivered by the Internet, and six months ago CCC made a commitment to make all new releases Internet products. The first of that new generation of products will be coming out the second half of this year.

Meanwhile, CCC is pursuing a multi-channel Internet strategy through agreements to make some of their titles available on the web via technology from iMind (Mill Valley, CA). Most recently, the two companies struck an agreement for iMind to offer SuccessMaker on the web. Other CCC software that iMind makes available includes Reader's Workshop, Story Painter, Vamos A Leer and Writer's Studio.

iMind's solution allows resource-intensive applications to run on a centrally hosted server rather than classroom computers. Offering the software through iMind allows it to be accessed from any web browser, whether at school or home. The technology also allows schools to use legacy machines to run the multimedia software.