Shaping the future of online learning

One year ago, we acquired the online adaptive learning provider CogBooks.

The move brought together our world-leading content and global reach with CogBooks’ skills, platform, and courseware technology.

Mandy Hill, Managing Director of Academic Publishing at Cambridge University Press & Assessment, said: “We saw the acquisition as a chance to help shape the future of education in an increasingly digital, post-Covid world. Since then, it’s become even clearer just how much potential there is across Cambridge and our global markets for putting the CogBooks platform and the expertise within the team at the centre of our vision for the future of online learning.”

Rather than a one-size-fits-all solution, CogBooks’ adaptive learning technology personalises learning by targeting the unique needs of individual learners exactly when they need it.

Nic Rebne, Vice President of Learning Solutions, said: “We want to democratise education so that students, regardless of background or circumstance, can learn anything faster and with fewer barriers. Cambridge is helping the mission by providing the brand awareness, customer base, and resources to continually improve the vision.”

12-months on and CogBooks is now fully integrated into the wider organisation and into Cambridge teams, providing us with new capabilities and offering more opportunities for career development.

Most importantly, the integration has also presented even more possibilities to support learners with world-leading educational content, as teams across the organisation look to improve the way students learn and acquire knowledge, from providing a more bespoke and specialised teaching and learning offer for schools, to moving into new areas of the curriculum in Higher Education and developing new, flexible online learning solutions.

Jim Thompson, CEO of CogBooks, said: “Being part of Cambridge gives us the chance to develop adaptive learning at scale and to be at the heart of adaptive learning and artificial intelligence going forward.”

Mark Maddocks, Chief Information Officer, said: “Adaptive learning is increasingly important to Cambridge and it is great to have the technology and data skills that the new team brings to us as part of the wider technology team.”

Following a successful year of innovation, progress, and unity across the organisation, this latest milestone is yet another signal of progress as we continue to strengthen our offerings to teachers, learners and researchers.