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VitalSource
VitalSource Technologies, Inc.
Formation1994
HeadquartersRaleigh, North Carolina, United States
ProductsAcrobatiq, SmartStart, Bookshelf, Intrepid, and Verba
ServicesEducation Technology Solutions
Websitehttps://get.vitalsource.com/

VitalSource Technologies is an education technology and digital content company. The company works with 8,000 institutions and more than 1,000 publishers and resellers to provide digital course materials and learning solutions to 16 million users around the world.[1] VitalSource has offices in La Vergne, Tennessee, Raleigh, North Carolina, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, as well as in England and Australia.[1]

History

Launch and Growth

VitalSource was founded in 1994 in San Antonio, Texas by Dr. Robert Todd Watkins, Jr. The original team that came together to help Dr. Watkins launch the company included Rick Johnson, who had spent the previous ten years at Apple, William Chesser, who joined from a position in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Willie Abrams, who came over from the University of Oklahoma Center for Telemedicine. The company was formed to look for ways technology could improve learning.[2]

As a faculty member at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio in the early 1990s, Watkins research projects looking into the impact of technology on teaching and learning. He was focused on how technology might infuse "new life" into what he saw as unconnected and non-interactive course materials. With support from then-dean Dr. Ken Kalkwarf, Watkins began testing his ideas with students and faculty in 1995. The company’s first commercial implementations kicked off in 2000, when a small group of dental schools piloted the use of an early course materials solution—DVDs that held full digital versions of each student’s entire four years of textbooks, workbooks, lecture slides, manuals, and handbooks. The digital curriculum was updated each semester and stayed with students after graduation as a professional resource.[2] [3]

In January 1997, the company set up offices at 10010 San Pedro Blvd in San Antonio. During this early period, business was supported by a small group of angel investors and by SATEX Investment Partners, run by Danny Mills. In 1999, the team relocated to Raleigh, NC., where the company added backing from a group of investors led by Frank Daniels III. The company has remained headquartered in Raleigh.

Initial business was in dental education. However, in the early 2000s, as interest grew in its dental school offerings, the company added business by white-labelling versions of its software for publishers—initially for Elsevier Health for the nursing market with a product called Evolve Select.[4] During the same early period, they launched a partnership with the PC division of IBM (later carried over to Lenovo) pre-loading large sets of organized, searchable, royalty-free content on laptops destined for education markets worldwide. The program was rolled out at select schools alongside IBM’s “ThinkPad University” program.[5]

By 2005, one-in-three dental students in America was receiving all their curriculum support materials digitally from VitalSource.[6]

In its first decade in the market, VitalSource launched multiple innovations. These included the first digital full-curriculum product, the first multi-publisher digital-course-materials solution in higher education, the first synchronized online/offline digital reading platform, and the first LMS-integrated e-textbook delivery.[6]

In July 2006, VitalSource was acquired by Ingram Content Group, a service provider to the publishing industry and a subsidiary of Ingram Industries.[7]

Before the end of the decade, VitalSource had moved beyond health sciences and was powering the first fully integrated, campus-wide e-textbook programs in the world for EDMC and DeVry University.[8] By 2011, VitalSource began to extend the impact of its solutions outside the US, with department-wide, and later campus-wide implementations at Plymouth University in the U.K., Swinburne Online University in Australia, the Higher Colleges of Technology in the U.A.E, and, through partnerships with Minha Biblioteça in Brazil[9], and Van Schaiks Booksellers in South Africa[10], among others.

Also at this time, VitalSource extended its support for adult learners in the corporate training space through a partnership with Gilmore Global.[11]

Over the last decade, VitalSource has broadened its suite of services to better address issues of access and affordability in higher education. In 2011, they expanded their design and development capabilities by acquiring VPG Integrated Media, a Boston-based digital publisher-services provider.[12] VPG founders Doug Latham and Chip Price joined VitalSource at that time. Then in March 2014, VitalSource announced the acquisition of CourseSmart, an academic e-publishing consortium that at the time made available an extensive inventory of e-textbooks that covered a large swath of the higher education market—including up to an estimated 90 percent of e-textbooks in use at that time in higher education.[13] Today, VitalSource’s digital distribution and access technologies are used at more than 80 percent of higher education institutions in the United States.[14]

In April 2017, as the market for access to digital resources continued to accelerate both in the US and around the world, VitalSource announced the acquisition of Verba Software, Inc.[15] Verba was founded in 2008 by Ryan Peterson and Jared Pearlman to help college students save money on textbooks, and it grew to provide several web-based services enabling campus retailers to promote affordable course materials. These efforts culminated in the Verba Connect product, which facilitates the management of Inclusive Access and Equitable Access course-material delivery models.10 Later that same year, VitalSource announced the acquisition of Intrepid Learning, a collaborative learning-platform business serving the corporate training market. The Intrepid acquisition expanded VitalSource footprint in the corporate, certification, and adult learning markets. Post-acquisition, the business operates as Intrepid by VitalSource,[16] and Intrepid president Sam Herring joined VitalSource at that time.

Then, in 2018, in a move to expand its learning platform options for learners, VitalSource acquired Acrobatiq, a learning and data analytics platform. Built on research from Carnegie-Mellon University, the Acrobatiq platform is an adaptive learning courseware platform designed to increase student engagement and allow for more personalization in the learning process.

In 2019, the company partnered with Barnes & Noble Education (BNED) to expand access to and implementation of BNED’s “FirstDay” Inclusive Access program, which gives students access to course materials by or before the first day of class each term.[17]

In June 2020, Ingram Content Group completed the sale of VitalSource to Francisco Partners.

Services

VitalSource offers four learning platforms: Acrobatiq by VitalSource (courseware), Bookshelf (digital content), Intrepid (corporate learning), and SmartStart (course creation), and a variety of digital content management tools spanning analytics, sampling, and campus store management.[18]

Its partners include publishers, academic institutions, campus retailers, and training and certification associations.[18]

See Also

VitalSource official website

References

  1. ^ a b Lombaerde, Geert De. "Ingram Content selling VitalSource". Nashville Post. Retrieved 2021-06-02.
  2. ^ a b "Bookbag of the Future". archive.nytimes.com. Retrieved 2021-06-02.
  3. ^ Hendricson, William; Eisenberg, Elise; Guest, Gary; Jones, Pamela; Johnson, Lynn; Panagakos, Fotinos; McDonald, James; Cintron, Laura (2006-05). "What Do Dental Students Think About Mandatory Laptop Programs?". Journal of Dental Education. 70 (5): 480–499. doi:10.1002/j.0022-0337.2006.70.5.tb04103.x. ISSN 0022-0337. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ "‎Elsevier eBooks on VitalSource". App Store. Retrieved 2021-06-02.
  5. ^ Krishnan, Sheila; Hage, Chadi; Coakley, Raymond; van Duin, David; Lobo, Leonard Jason (2019-02-18). "Respiratory Viral Infections in Lung Transplant Recipients: Implications for Long Term Outcomes and Emerging Therapies". OBM Transplantation. 3 (2): 1–1. doi:10.21926/obm.transplant.1902065. ISSN 2577-5820.
  6. ^ a b Chesser, William D. (2011-11-23). "Chapter 5: The E-textbook Revolution". Library Technology Reports. 47 (8): 28–40. ISSN 0024-2586.
  7. ^ "News & Views : Ingram Acquires Vital Source, Expands Digital Content Delivery : Authorlink®". authorlink.com. Retrieved 2021-06-02.
  8. ^ "Ingram's e-Textbook Platform VitalSource® Selected by DeVry University". PRWeb. Retrieved 2021-06-02.
  9. ^ "Digital Textbooks Go Global, Go Multimedia, Go Mainstream". Publishing Perspectives. 2011-08-22. Retrieved 2021-06-02.
  10. ^ "Van Schaik selects Ingram's VitalSource® to power e-textbook offering to customers | Van Schaik". www.vanschaik.com. Retrieved 2021-06-02.
  11. ^ "Digital Learning Delivery | Online Learning Solutions". Gilmore Global. Retrieved 2021-06-02.
  12. ^ spolanka (2011-07-01). "Ingram's Vital Source acquires VPG Integrated Media, specializing in enhanced e-textbooks". No Shelf Required. Retrieved 2021-06-02.
  13. ^ "CourseSmart, the publishing industry's e-textbook provider, acquired by Vital Source". www.insidehighered.com. Retrieved 2021-06-02.
  14. ^ "VitalSource acquires courseware platform Acrobatiq | Inside Higher Ed". www.insidehighered.com. Retrieved 2021-06-02.
  15. ^ "VitalSource Acquires Verba". www.ingramcontent.com. Retrieved 2021-06-02.
  16. ^ Center, VitalSource Press. "VitalSource Acquires Intrepid Learning". press.vitalsource.com. Retrieved 2021-06-02.
  17. ^ "Barnes & Noble Education Partners with VitalSource to Strengthen BNC FirstDay Inclusive Access Platform, Enhancing Affordability and Access Solutions for Colleges & Universities". investor.bned.com. Retrieved 2021-06-02.
  18. ^ a b VitalSource, Intrepid by. "Digital Learning Platforms & Content Management - VitalSource". get.vitalsource.com. Retrieved 2021-06-02.
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