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"The QlikView Business Discovery platform delivers true self-service BI that empowers business users and drives innovative decision making."

Business intelligence and learning analytics have a lot in common. Just sharing a product that was mentioned in an EDUCAUSE list.

"In collaboration with Academic Partnerships, the University of Delaware's Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics has announced an innovative new online master of business administration (MBA) program. Academic Partnerships was selected to work with the Lerner College to deliver their faculty's curriculum to a growing number of students who want a top MBA delivered in a highly-flexible format. The program is expected to launch in spring 2013. "

In 2009, JISC Collections commenced a new study to explore in more detail the e-textbook landscape in the UK and to work collaboratively with publishers and libraries to identify and pilot four potential e-textbook business models. The results and reports of this study are available to all. In addition to the reports, there are a number of case studies available from the university libraries that participated in the e-textbook trials which make excellent reading.

"After all we (as a society not libraries) did not get the first sale doctrine out of the goodness of someone's heart, it came from a court case. Maybe we need to stop asking. It wouldn't be the first time."

A good summary of the state of the ebook business and libraries.

The 11-year-old online program accounts for just over a quarter of the enrollment at UMass's Isenberg School of Management, yet revenues from the program cover about 40 percent of the school's $25-million annual budget. And that's after UMass Online, the in-house marketing agency, as well as a few other arms of the university have taken their cuts. The business school's experience helps to illustrate the economics of distance education and the way one college with a marketable offering is using online education to help its bottom line.

if FWK (or other organizations) can find sustainability while distributing free digital textbooks, the textbook market could be dramatically altered. Because it is so hard to compete with "free," textbook prices would likely come down and eventually become only a small part of the cost of higher education. The potential for the disruption of the textbook publishing industry, as well as the potential savings to students, is enormous if one or more organizations can create a sustainable business model. Whether this can be done remains to be seen.

"Developing an eText strategy that will serve the needs of institutions, faculty, and students requires thoughtful planning. This presentation will use the Indiana University experience as a case study to explore the strategic, business, and policy issues that institutions should consider when exploring an institutional eText strategy or considering an eText initiative."

Newco will combine Barnes & Noble's digital and college businesses, meaning the retailer's Nook operations and its Nook Study software for students and educators will be a part of the undertaking.

"VSU partnered with Flat World Knowledge, a start-up publisher that produces exclusively written e-books with "open" content that can be modified by professors. In a trial with 14 business courses, students would be required to pay $20 and receive a Flat World e-book and digital learning supplements. (The university and a local grant have been covering the cost, so far.)"

Saw this - not sure if we might want to register. I am not sure all would be relevant - but thought this topic interesting: Drive improved student outcomes - with better visibility into student performance and drivers of student behavior.

"To help you make sense of the transition, we've assembled our experts to explain where digital course materials will likely gain traction first; our philosophy about the two ways digital will evolve; and Follett's predictions for the near and long-term future of digital learning. "

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is stepping up its investment in innovative delivery models in higher education, announcing $9-million in grants today to support a range of new approaches. Among the awards is the foundation's first contribution to so-called MOOC's, or Massive Open Online Courses, where professors let anyone online take their courses, sometimes attracting tens of thousands of learners. Specifically, the Gates Foundation is giving $1-million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for its MITx project, which offers such open courses.

Coursera's leaders say they are actively pursuing only two of the moneymaking ideas on the list: charging students who pass the courses a small fee for a certificate, and serving as a matchmaker between students looking for jobs and companies seeking qualified employees.

Apple is aggressively moving to make the iPad cheaper and cheaper to build while eyeing the situation where tablets in general, and iPads in particular, are nearly ubiquitous. When you understand these trends, the iBooks Author / iBooks 2 / iTunesU App strategy for education makes a lot more sense.

"We told the publishers, 'We'll go to the agency model, where you set the price, and we get our 30%, and yes, the customer pays a little more, but that's what you want anyway,'" Mr. Jobs was quoted as saying by his biographer, Walter Isaacson. The publishers were then able to impose the same model across the industry, Mr. Jobs told Mr. Isaacson. "They went to Amazon and said, 'You're going to sign an agency contract or we're not going to give you the books,' " Mr. Jobs said. The Justice Department believes that Apple and the publishers acted in concert to raise prices across the industry, and is prepared to sue them for violating federal antitrust laws, the people familiar with the matter said.