VitalSource

Why should you consider this?

Globally, in a more commercialised environment for Higher Education, levels of student satisfaction and success are at the forefront of university strategy; offering excellent and appealing learning tools is a goal towards which every university works.

In this challenging sector, accessing the technology that can transform education is key – engaging a generation of digital-native students, helping them achieve their learning outcomes and success more effectively and more enjoyably too.

VitalSource was founded in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1994. Now part of the Ingram Content Group, it has evolved from an e–textbook platform into an end-to-end content management system and technology partner to institutions and publishers.

MD John Donovan explains his company’s approach. “The marketisation of education” means students now have much higher expectations, he says. “Universities are looking to ways they can drive their recruitment and improve the student experience, and they’re saying that one of the ways they can do this is they can embed an e-textbook programme within the course so that students have access to materials on the first day of class.”

VitalSource places equal importance on three stakeholder groups within HE: universities and institutions, publishers, and students. “Our aim is twofold: to have the best, most interactive, high quality content on our platform – and to facilitate that process for our publisher partners – and to make the student learning experience the best it can be when they use that content and save them time and money along the way.”

VitalSource have been active in South Africa for the last 5 years. Their first customer in South Africa signed in 2012 and their growing footprint in the region has seen them invest in a Business Development representative based in Cape Town since 2017. Customers include a range of institutions in South Africa including the University of Pretoria, University of Cape Town, UNISA and Milpark Education. In 2017, over 126,000 users viewed over 7 million pages in Bookshelf, the company’s reading software.

VitalSource works with over 1,400 publishers from around the world and in South Africa with local and international content from multinational publishers such as Pearson, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press and Cengage and with local publishers including but not limited to Via Afrika, Juta, Van Schaik Publishers and WITS University Press.

Jeni Evans, Head of Business Development for the UK & South Africa says, “We’ve seen a sharp increase in usage in South Africa, one of the factors that has led to our investment in having a local presence in the region. Also investing in the region are publishers who have historically led the charge in driving change from print to digital based learning. This has been in response to student demand for flexible, technologically driven content and institutions facing delays in obtaining print textbooks from overseas. VitalSource offers institutions the ability to integrate their e-Textbooks into their VLE system for free so that they are available on the first day of class. In addition, the availability of native applications for Android, iOS, Kindle, Mac, Windows and Chromebook means that students have flexible options to access their digital books, online and offline to suit their study and learning preferences.”

The student protests in South Africa “have often led to universities coming directly to VitalSource – as we don’t rely on bookstores to supply digital copies. The increased focus on fees and student expectations of their higher education experience have prompted many institutions to consider including content provision within the course. Our local presence means that we are more agile and able to reach and consult with faculty and students on campus.” says Evans.

Students access content through VitalSource Bookshelf®. With Bookshelf, students can download the whole e-textbook to their device and study without internet access. The reader automatically syncs the last page read, bookmarks, notes and highlights across up to four devices, and has a Read Aloud facility which means students can listen to e-textbooks on the go if they so choose. The powerful search tool helps learners navigate a title or their entire library to quickly find a concept and a new feature, Assigned Readings, allows lecturers to customise content for students, with start and end points, to help them complete assignments in a focused view to eliminate distractions.

Despite the changing HE environment in which VitalSource operates, Donovan says “what we are talking about ultimately is the acquisition of skills for the 21st century and the world of work: that’s the vision for higher education. At VitalSource we feel we’ve got a real part to play in that vision.  Through using our highly interactive content and our platform, whether it’s a single course solution or across an entire institution we provide access to data which university lecturers and staff wouldn’t otherwise have access to around the course experience.  It means that the university can help those students who are at risk of falling behind – our engagement dashboards provide invaluable data on how students interact with their assigned course materials, providing faculty with the opportunity to measure learning outcomes by correlating this data with pass and retention rates on their course and more broadly across their institution.

https://www.get.vitalsource.com/