It would seem that Thomson has rather suddenly made a gigantic investment in the world of on-line learning, through a series of acquisitions and alliances -- and yet, oddly, there has been no general announcement by Thomson of a major move into this field. Each of the various deals has been announced separately, with no reference to the others. A shrewd person at Athabasca has put it all together, in the following report (which I’ve slightly abridged). --John Bear --------------------------- Thomson Learning last week announced a plan to build a global e-university with Universitas21. On the same day, the Peterson’s division of Thomson Learning, announced an alliance with Making It Count, a division of online pre-college services provider CollegeLink.com, Inc. A few weeks ago, Thomson acquired all of Harcourt’s Higher Education group: the NET global, Assessment Systems, Inc (ASI), and Drake Beam Morin businesses from Harcourt‚s Corporate & Professional Services group; and the Higher Education portion of Harcourt Publishers., including the former International Correspondence School, world’s largest distance learning company in terms of number of students. Thomson also just announced that it has acquired Greenhaven Press, Inc. and Lucent Books, Inc.,privately-held book publishers of social issues and other nonfiction series for middle and high school students. Another Thomson subsidiary, Course Technology , is working with Web CT , a well known online learning delivery platform, to develop a series of what they call e-learning resource packs (more than 75 have been produced so far). Meanwhile, Delmar, a Thomson subsidiary specializing in technology and trades, acquired Jamsa Press, an electronics and technical learning publishing company. And the last piece of the puzzle, an easy-to-use set-yop viewer, comes with Thomson's announcement, also today, of a partnership with Microsoft to launch a product for interactive television that will offer enhanced TV content and Web access over analog phone lines. The list of activities goes on... all in all, this represents a major initiative, which when viewed as a whole, represents the development of an educational institution which dwarfs even the largest university... and one which, if managed with vision and cohesion (as the list of acquisitions and alliances seems to suggest) stands to reshape the future of learning in general, from kindergarten to professional development. ---------------------------------------------------------------
Knowing Harcourt/ICS as well as I do, I can honestly say this is the scariest sentence I've read in a long while.
Didn't they make a huge ($800m comes to mind) in Sylvan Prometric a while back ? Or did that fall through ... ? Cheers, N.
Didn't fall through at all -- Last year Thomson acquired the Prometric division of Sylvan Learning Systems for US$775 million in cash. (press release) ------------------ Kristin Evenson Hirst DistanceLearn.About.com
WOW! It sounds clear to me that they are going to be offering a complete home education system using the web. Set-top boxes to access the `net from a TV, content on the web, and Sylvan could offer testing through the web. A one stop solution and they could bundle the whole thing into the tuition price. Smart people. I've always wondered how long it would be until Sylvan found a secure/safe way to offer their exams through the web. Driving to their testing centers allows them to check my drivers license but that's about the only difference. I recently took a web-based exam for a Compaq refresher course and I thought it was a "good thing."
Yup, That's the way to do it !!! A complete package aimed at the learner and his/her needs ... what a refreshing change from the traditional world where even getting some (any) recognition in the DL world is like pulling teeth or closer to waiting for continents to shift .... In other words, AAP: Applicable, Accessible and Price performant ! Cheers, N.
Why wouldn't there be an announcement to build an educational empire "which dwarfs even the largest university"? Well, for starters, let us not forget the words of Duane Webster, executive director of the Association of Research Libraries in Washington, D.C., which represents 121 of the largest research collections in North America, regarding the planned merger of Reed Elsevier and Harcourt: "This transaction should be prevented," he wrote to U.S. Department of Justice regulators on October 27, 2000 - the day the deal was announced. According to Mr. Webster, the merger "will have severe repercussions for libraries, researchers, and the public." I see no reason to ignore the same red flags in the unholy alliance of Thomson's and Harcourt's "educational" pursuits. Similar concerns of the dangers of these aggressive marketing-driven campaigns were raised by Jeanne Donovan of the Texas Education Consumers Association when she wrote: "The SAT (Standardized Achievement Test), the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS), and other state assessments, are written by The Psychological Corporation (PC) and are aligned with national standards. The Psychological Corporation is a subsidiary of Harcourt Brace (now under the umbrella of Harcourt General, Inc.). Harcourt Brace was purchased by General Cinema Corporation (now known as GC Companies, Inc.). At least on the surface, it looks like media moguls own the company that writes our school assessments; they also own the company that produces our textbooks. This raises a few questions in my mind: Anything wrong with this picture? Anything wrong with my reading of the historical data? Anything wrong with the idea of school assessments being written by psychologists and pedagogical specialists, rather than subject specialists? Any potential for manipulation of populations' attitudes, values, and beliefs? Does anyone know if Marc Tucker or other education gurus are on the boards of these companies, or are major stockholders?"
Is AAP an acronym for a new process of quality control, i.e., AAP accredited? To become accredited the new wave of distance learning institution (system) must meet AAP criteria? 1. Applicable: The educational pedagogy must be of a pragmatic nature. 2. Accessible: The methodology must be consistent with supply/demand. 3. Price Performant: The cost must be within the reach of the average citizen. Thomson, Harcourt, etc., could possibly call the new venture "Universal University." Russell
This is intriguing stuff; someone posted this to AED about a year ago and I wrote it off as a conspiracy theory, but all these purchases are making me wonder... If you were to speculate -- marking it clearly as speculation, of course, not asserting anything specific -- what would you imagine the overall goal to be? Peace, ------------------ Tom Head co-author, Get Your IT Degree and Get Ahead (Osborne/McGraw-Hill)
Tom, there's no reason to speculate. Their goal is as clear as the nose on Bob "The Nooch" Antonucci's face: $$$$$$$$$$$$$ The 60 Minutes report on distance ed a few weeks back estimated the US education market at $300 billion. Thomson's maneuvers are an unquestionably bold grab at a lion's share of that market. But we hear no lion's roar in this scenario. Instead, the jackals in the Armani suits are furtively sneaking around in the bushes.
Wow, I guess the Alzheimer's is setting in. I had to see this post in a Google search before I remembered it: From: H. Piper ([email protected]) Subject: Re: Harcourt General info... Newsgroups: alt.education.distance Date: 2000-10-27 18:20:11 PST Well, the wait is over. Harcourt was sold to Reed Elsevier and The Thomson Corporation today. The Thomson Corporation will take the educational divisions of Harcourt, in some contrast to what was reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education last year: > Thomson officials say they have no plans > -- at least for now -- to go the route that > Harcourt has taken and create their own > institution. Thomson would rather provide > content to "those people who are really > experts at supplying degrees," says Robert > S. Christie, Thomson Learning's chief > executive officer. I was thinking earlier today about when I first heard of the proposed Thomson/Harcourt merger in a meeting with a Harcourt VP and a Thomson regional sales director in early 1999. Now I wonder why Thomson's CEO was publicly denying a plan which was already underway. Of course, the main reason for the multi-billion dollar sale of Harcourt last year was to boost Harcourt's failing stock price which hit a low last spring, but then miraculously recovered with the rumor of the sale in June. See http://www.foxmarketwire.com/wires/0619/f_ap_0619_50.sml Many of you know from previous posts that Harcourt was bought by a chain of Texas drive-in movie theaters years ago which fused their name (General Cinema) with Harcourt to get what we knew until recently as Harcourt General. I don't know if it is as well known that Thomson's big money roots are in the petroleum industry.
