• The Road to Secure the First 1,000 Clients

    The Road to Secure the First 1,000 Clients

    What do Google, Instructure and Datatel have in common? They all started with a powerful idea but with next to no clients. This pathway to success is even the title of a podcast series hosted by Mitch Russo and is often the topic of business articles (here’s an example from inc.com). When we know that…

  • Gaining Deeper Insight into Implementation Trends

    Gaining Deeper Insight into Implementation Trends

    Most people love looking at implementation trends. For example, many of us pore over trends, such as how our favorite sports teams have done over the past ten games or how the stock market has performed this year. Those of us in the world of education analyze student success metrics (retention rates, etc.), institutional revenues,…

  • RFP Data – Mid-2023 Update

    RFP Data – Mid-2023 Update

    We know that some of our newsletter subscribers crave our RFP data. Considering it’s been over six months since our last update on the “RFP Data – Market Priorities,” we thought it would be a good time to see if early 2023 brought some new trends in the different product categories. Since the first iteration…

  • Alert Notification Systems

    Alert Notification Systems

    An emergency notification system should be considered mandatory in any instance where urgent information may need to be passed to a large group of people at the same time at short notice, for the benefit of their health and safety.

  • Exploring Differences in Our Database

    Exploring Differences in Our Database

    As part of our regular operations, we take time to do quality control and to explore our database. When we see uncommon trends, we dig down into them to better understand what can cause these differences. In this post, we would like to dig into our dataset to explore why we have such a big…

  • The Value of Interoperability in Education

    The Value of Interoperability in Education

    This post explores further topics discussed during a presentation given at the PESC Data Summit 2023. Technological ecosystems of education institutions in the United States can be very crowded. For example, our data shows that K-12 school districts have up to thirty-eight active solutions implementations, and higher educational institutions have as many as two-hundred and…

  • D2L: Transforming How the World Learns

    D2L: Transforming How the World Learns

    From a small LMS company gaining customers mostly from Canadian institutions 20 years ago to the second most implemented learning management system since the pandemic across North America, D2L (previously known as Desire2Learn) shows that David can become a contender to Goliath. The Inception D2L was established in 1999 by John Baker, a Canadian entrepreneur…

  • Justin’s Thoughts on Ellucian Live 2023

    Justin’s Thoughts on Ellucian Live 2023

    Almost a month has passed since my return from Ellucian Live 2023. I am still processing everything I saw and the announcements that Ellucian made. I must be honest: Ellucian Live 2023 was my first Ellucian conference. My first impression: it was big, almost as big as Educause. A little over 5,000 participants gathered in New…

  • Proctoring Solutions: Market Dynamics

    Proctoring Solutions: Market Dynamics

    Proctoring solutions help institutions ensure that academic integrity is maintained on assessments, particularly, but not exclusively, in online learning environments. This is accomplished through a number of functions that seek to validate test-taker identity, monitor test-taking, and ensure the authenticity of work. Most proctoring companies offer services that automate the entire proctoring process. Many also…

  • Educational Use of Payment Solutions

    Educational Use of Payment Solutions

    Regarding payment solutions, universities, colleges and school districts are no different from your local coffee shops, department stores or movie theatres: they need an easy way to exchange money to pay for goods and services. A few years ago, cash was the only way to pay tuition fees. These times are long gone, especially since…

  • Understanding Technology Bundles 

    Understanding Technology Bundles 

    We often receive questions from institutional leaders and vendors about which bundles of technology institutions have implemented. Institutional leaders ask this question to inform decision-making about which technologies to implement. Vendors often want to gain insight into these bundles to understand how institutions arrange their technologies and see where their products might fit.   But is…

  • Our Take on the Quottly Acquisition by Parchment

    Our Take on the Quottly Acquisition by Parchment

    Last week, Parchment announced the acquisition of Quottly. As mentioned in the press release, “[t]his acquisition adds a new dimension to Parchment’s mission to turn credentials into opportunities by helping higher education give students access to more academic options, up-to-date transfer information, and guided pathways to ensure they stay on track and graduate on time.”…