Coursera announced a partnership with textbook rental site Chegg on Wednesday, making eTextbooks and other supplemental tools available to students participating in the platform’s massive open online courses.
The good news affects more than just students, however. Professors teaching classes on Coursera have previously only been able to assign content found freely on the Web. Yet, this partnership allows them to collaborate with five different publishers and make a wider variety of teaching and learning materials available at no cost to the student.
Through Chegg, Coursera has been granted access to publishers Cengage Learning, Macmillan Higher Education, Oxford University Press, SAGE and Wiley.
“We recognize the importance of forging partnerships with other stakeholders in the education space in order to help students overcome barriers and evolve the way they access education,” said Coursera Co-Founder Daphne Koller in a press release. “Our collaboration with Chegg and top publishers allows us to give Coursera students access to the reading material that is such an important aspect of many educational experiences, supporting our goal of learning without limits.”
On Chegg’s end, the partnership will not only help them expand and adapt their digital offerings, but reach a new audience of learners—more than three million students are registered on Coursera.
“It’s vital that we put students first,” said Chegg President and CEO Dan Rosensweig. “Digital courses allow the most sought-after classes, taught by the most knowledgeable educators to be accessible, even worldwide, helping students finish college quicker and with less debt.”
Koller, a Stanford professor who’s also incorporated the University into Coursera, has always opted to work with existing systems as opposed to against them. In an April interview with Northeastern President Joseph Aoun, Koller refused to use the word “disruption,” preferring “transforming” instead, admitting that if a student approached her asking whether they should attend Northeastern solely online or approach learning residentially, she would encourage they come to Northeastern.
The cooperation is paying off. Since launching in April 2012, Coursera has been able to partner with 62 universities.
Buy in from the textbook companies is something Boston-based Boundless is missing. Instead of working with publishers, the open textbook startup is pushing against them—a move that’s led to being sued by three major textbook publishers. What Boundless continues to offer, however, are enhanced elements that promise a deeper level of interactivity, including the ability to highlight keywords and create flashcards or study materials simply by dragging and dropping content.
Considering Boundless is being used by students at over half of the country’s colleges, the startup has to be doing something right. Bottom line: this partnership won’t deter their growth.
As for fellow online learning platform edX, however, Coursera’s news highlights a problem they still need to contend with. Professors teaching courses on edX can only assign content found freely on the Web. A similar partnership would help them circumvent copyright issues, though, and further expand the platform’s offerings.
But Koller would likely remain undaunted. She’s already admitted she isn’t afraid of edX’s growth.
“It’s healthy to have multiple entrants into a space,” Koller said at Northeastern. “It would be unhealthy if there was just the one. From a much more pragmatic perspective, frankly, we’re much, much bigger on every single dimension.”
This partnership is proof of that.
