Concordia University, commonly referred to as Concordia, is a public comprehensive research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974 following the merger of Loyola College and Sir George Williams University, Concordia is one of the three universities in Quebec where English is the primary language of instruction. As of the 2020–21 academic year, there were 51,253 students enrolled in credit courses at Concordia, making the university among the largest in Canada by enrolment. The university has two campuses, set approximately 7 kilometres apart: Sir George Williams Campus is the main campus, located in the Quartier Concordia neighbourhood of Downtown Montreal in the borough of Ville Marie; and Loyola Campus in the residential district of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. With four faculties, a school of graduate studies and numerous colleges, centres and institutes, Concordia offers over 400 undergraduate and 200 graduate programs and courses.
Phillip Calvin McGraw, better known as Dr. Phil, is an American television personality, author and the host of the television show Dr. Phil. He holds a doctorate in clinical psychology, though he ceased renewing his license to practice psychology in 2006.
University of Phoenix (UoPX) is a private for-profit university with its headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona. Founded in 1976, the university confers certificates and degrees at the certificate, associate, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree levels. It is institutionally accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and has an open enrollment admission policy, accepting all applicants with a high-school diploma, GED, or its equivalent as sufficient for admission. The school is owned by Apollo Global Management, an American private equity firm. The university has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in fines and settlements concerning its student recruiting practices and education programs, particularly including deceptive advertising to prospective students.
S&P Global Inc. is an American publicly traded corporation headquartered in Manhattan, New York City. Its primary areas of business are financial information and analytics. It is the parent company of S&P Global Ratings, S&P Global Market Intelligence, and S&P Global Platts, CRISIL, and is the majority owner of the S&P Dow Jones Indices joint venture. "S&P" is a shortening of "Standard and Poor's".
The University of Arizona Global Campus, formerly Ashford University, is an online university "operated in affiliation with the University of Arizona." In 2020, Ashford University was acquired by the University of Arizona, becoming the University of Arizona Global Campus Zovio, a for-profit higher education corporation and Ashford's former owner, is the campus's online program manager. The University of Arizona Global Campus should not be confused with UA Global, the University of Arizona's global school.
Concordia University was a private Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS) university in Portland, Oregon that closed in Spring 2020. One remaining program, the accelerated Bachelor Degree, continues to operate under another Concordia University System school. Opened in 1905 as a University-preparatory school, the institution added college classes in 1950 and the high school formally split from the college in 1977. The school of approximately 5,400 undergraduate and graduate students was affiliated with the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod and the Concordia University System. Located in Northeast Portland, the school had branch campuses across Oregon and operated the Concordia University School of Law in Boise, Idaho. The university had four colleges and eighteen majors. Its athletic teams, known as the Cavaliers, competed in NCAA's Great Northwest Athletic Conference at the Division II level.
Pearson Education is a British-owned education publishing and assessment service to schools and corporations, as well for students directly. Pearson owns educational media brands including Addison–Wesley, Peachpit, Prentice Hall, eCollege, Longman, Scott Foresman, and others. Pearson is part of Pearson plc, which formerly owned the Financial Times. It claims to have been formed in 1840, with the current incarnation of the company created when Pearson plc purchased the education division of Simon & Schuster from Viacom and merged it with its own education division, Addison-Wesley Longman, to form Pearson Education. Pearson Education was rebranded to Pearson in 2011 and split into an International and a North American division.
John Katzman is an American EdTech pioneer. He has established a number of companies which assist students with their studies and career choices, including Princeton Review, 2U, and Noodle Partners. The last two companies are online program managers (OPMs). Katzman has also authored books on the subject.
Stephen Gilfus is an American businessman, entrepreneur, architect and engineer known as "The Father of Modern E-Learning". He is a founder of Blackboard Inc. and CourseInfo LLC, where he held executive positions from 1997 to 2007. Stephen is known as the primary business, and technical lead of Blackboard Inc. one of the world's most widely used eLearning systems. In July 2007, Gilfus started a global education think tank in Washington, DC focused on education innovation. He is a global education advisor, mentor, investor and inventor.
Cengage Group is an American educational content, technology, and services company for the higher education, K-12, professional, and library markets. It operates in more than 20 countries around the world.
Unigo is an online business matching students with colleges, scholarships, internships, student loans, majors and careers. According to USA Today, “millions of students use Unigo to assist in their college search.” Education publisher McGraw-Hill wrote “Unigo is the largest and most authoritative library of college reviews on the internet.”
Edmodo is an educational technology company offering a communication, collaboration, and coaching platform to K-12 schools and teachers. The Edmodo network enables teachers to share content, distribute quizzes, assignments, and manage communication with students, colleagues, and parents. Edmodo is teacher-centric in its design and philosophy: students and parents can only join Edmodo if invited to do so by a teacher. Teachers and students may spend large amounts of time on the platform, both in and out of the classroom. Edmodo is free to use, but it also offers premium services.
2U, Inc. is an American educational technology company that contracts with non-profit colleges and universities to offer online degree programs. The company supplies its client institutions with a cloud-based software-as-a-service platform, coursework design, infrastructure support, and capital.
BenchPrep is an American company that provides cloud-based study guides for standardized tests, professional certifications, and K-12 classroom learning. It has partnered with educational publishers such as McGraw Hill, John Wiley & Sons, and the Princeton Review to create interactive, digitized courses.
McGraw Hill is an American learning company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that provides customized educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also provides reference and trade publications for the medical, business, and engineering professions. McGraw Hill operates in 28 countries, has more than 3,900 employees globally, and offers products and services to over 135 countries in 60+ languages.
For-profit higher education in the United States refers to the commercialization and privatization of American higher education institutions. For-profit colleges have been the most recognizable for-profit institutions, but commercialization has been a part of US higher education for more than a century. Privatization of public institutions has also been increasing for decades.
Engrade is an educational technology company that provides online learning management system and educational assessment products to K-12 school districts. Engrade was founded in 2003 and later acquired by McGraw-Hill Education in January 2014. As of March 2015, Engrade ranks in the top 5,000 US websites.
ConnectEd is a United States Federal Government Initiative that aims to increase internet connectivity and technology in all public schools to enhance learning. The ConnectEd initiative is funded through Title IV Part A of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which designates specific monies for the effective use of technology in schools. The 2016 National Education Technology Plan aligns with ConnectEd as a published action plan to meet these goals of technology integration and connectivity.
As part of EdTech, online program managers (OPMs) provide products and services on which educational institutions can run online courses. OPMs, mostly for-profit enterprises, have allowed universities to enter into the online education business and gain market share without the need to build their own platform. In effect, online program managers are also outsourcers of edtech labor. OPMs have grown substantially as universities have seen the benefit of students reaching beyond their geographical area while recognizing their lack of skills in creating, maintaining, and optimizing online courses. Proponents of outsourcing from for-profit companies say that it "helps universities save money and makes them more nimble and efficient." Moody's Dennis Gephardt, however warns that "more and more are cutting closer to the academic core."
EducationDynamics (EDDY) is a privately owned higher education management corporation engaged in for-profit higher education in the United States. Founded in 2005, the firm engages in multichannel marketing, lead generation, and enrollment management for a number of US colleges, with a particular focus on adult online education. It also partners with private lenders who provide student loans, produces marketing research about adult online students, and hosts the Conference for Adult Learner Enrollment Management (CALEM).
