This is a media property with the requisite independence to report on education technology as a developing industry. It aims to provide crowd-sourced and professionally reported information to students and other stakeholders.

Problem

Students need better information about online education options. The $50 billion online education industry is growing rapidly in the United States, China and other markets. It is made up of hundreds of for-profit, online colleges as well as large and small technology companies ranging from search giant Google and device maker Apple to course management company Blackboard Inc. Unfortunately, most of the growth right now is driven by profit-driven investors such as hedge funds and private equity firms that are aiming to make a quick profit in the industry. Some practices of the for-profit, online colleges - now the largest colleges in America - are deemed unethical. Officials in Washington D.C. are trying to crack down on the abuses in the industry ranging from problematic marketing to exorbitant tuition. Meanwhile, millions of adult workers or underprivileged students with ability are waiting for low-cost but high quality educational options. Many of these students/customers don't currently have enough independent information about the best ways to learn online for the most affordable price. And many faculty teaching at these schools are being over-worked and paid too little for it.

Solution

With seasoned business journalists on staff, we are providing solid reporting, editing, aggregating of information on the education technology and online education industries. We also will provide a crowd-sourced database that will help to rate the industry and create a flight to quality in the industry. We aim to provide transparency to this important industry. We believe the online education industry has potential to transform education for a broader group of people in developed and emerging markets, totaling in the billions of potential students. We intend to highlight the good ideas and companies in the space and to call out the bad ideas or unethical institutions in the space. Our product will dramatically improve quality in the online education industry by creating competition and transparency. This will help us develop lists and rankings of top providers and institutions in the future. A young person or working adult considering online learning options will be able to read information and reviews about institutions they are considering. If looking at The University of Phoenix, for example, they can read peer reviews, data sets and news stories we gather. We will provide rankings and wikipedia-style profile pages on the institutions to potential students free of charge. We will market our web site and published research via social marketing and through other traditional sales and marketing methods. As our site grows in traffic, we aim to introduce classified advertisements and a social network where the growing field of adjunct faculty members can upload resumes, share syllabi, discuss best practices, top textbooks and teaching methods with peers in various fields such as mathematics, journalism or biology.

Example

We will provide information tools that help students sort out the good from the bad and the ugly. We will report and write about all aspects of the industry. We will use a database and wiki-technology to have students help us rate these institutions and will invite students to share their knowledge with their peers. We show where money is flowing in this industry (i.e. the recent decision by a private equity firm to buy course management software firm Blackboard). But we also can choose to highlight social entrepreneurs who are coming up with interesting ideas. For example, we recently reported an original feature on a computer programmer in South Dakota named Biagio Arobba, who has developed a web site that teaches Lakota language. Arobba said that our stories on his company drove hundreds of hits to his web site and increased the visibility of his project. This is an example of how we are connecting emerging markets and entrepreneurs with the big money in the education technology and online education space. We intend to continue this kind of synergy-making - both in our journalistic content and with new products we introduce to our site including classified advertising, research products and a social network. It will have a large component of faculty and staff members in developing markets helping their counterparts in emerging markets. When we introduce our profile pages of online colleges and educational technology institutions, we will also be providing and organizing valuable information designed to create transparency about the institutions that rewards good management and punishes poor management. It benefits future potential students by making them aware of the quality of education at various institutions. These Wikipedia-style page would share data and facts on a project like Arobba's, bringing in news stories and user-generated reviews as well.

Marketplace

We are in a very open market right now. Large media companies such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News and other players report on these trends only occasionally. They tend to report on abuses in the for-profit or online education industry and then move on. They show little to no interest in reporting on innovation and entrepreneurs in the space who are making a difference in the emerging markets. Meanwhile, a few trade publications exist in this space such as The Chronicle of Higher Education. While the Chronicle is a good brand and publishes some very good journalism, we believe their scope is too limited. They focus only on the higher education market. WiredAcademic, meanwhile, focuses on technology and online learning in the high school, college and other education levels. WiredAcademic focuses on education technology and issues around the globe rather than just in the U.S. The Chronicle of Higher Education also does not appear poised to introduce the kinds of information products and social network we plan to introduce. They also do not seem interested in finding creative solutions to link faculty in developed markets with those in emerging markets.