Partnership marks milestone in institutional use of OER
panOpen announced today that it has partnered with Instructure to provide seamless integration of panOpen’s OER-based learning platform into the Canvas learning management system. The partnership marks another milestone in the growing maturity of Open Educational Resources in higher education.
“panOpen is thrilled to partner with Instructure, the fastest growing LMS company in the marketplace today,” said Brian Jacobs, panOpen’s founder and CEO. “For the first time, faculty and students have the benefits of low cost and flexible open content while maintaining the commercial standards of assessments, analytics, single sign-on, and gradebook syncing that they have increasingly come to expect in their teaching and learning experiences.”
Effective immediately, the single sign-on and gradebook syncing capabilities between the two companies are available for all current and prospective Canvas users. This is especially important for the many faculty who would like to enjoy the benefits of OER but have not had adequate tools and services to support this. With panOpen, not only can faculty make use of the platform tools, but also of panOpen’s editors and instructional designers to help ensure that both faculty and students have the best possible experience with open content.
“OER is clearly entering the mainstream and is now a compelling alternative to commercial content,” noted Melissa Loble, vice president of platform and partnerships at Instructure. “Instructure is pleased to welcome panOpen into our growing base of third parties offering new and innovative approaches to educational content that can improve learning outcomes and academic success.”
About panOpen
Designed by educators, panOpen is a learning platform that realizes the promise of OER by providing all of the components required for its widespread use. panOpen offers complete peer-reviewed content, customization tools, assessments, analytics, LMS integration, and a means of financially sustaining campus-based OER efforts. With panOpen, faculty adopt enhanced interactive OER as they would a commercial textbook, with confidence in the quality and reliability of the content. panOpen preserves the virtues of OER—radically reducing textbook costs and freeing faculty from the constraints of commercial copyright—while delivering the quality, features, and ease-of-use faculty expect from their learning materials. The result has enormous implications for pedagogical practices, changing the relationships of instructors and students to their educational content.
For more information on panOpen: contact Gary LaRosa glarosa(at)panopen(dot)com, visit panopen(dot)com to request a demo, or call 844-200-1511
