Boston-based Boundless has been striving to break down barriers in education by making affordable textbooks available to the masses. And a new partnership announced Thursday with mobile and Web-based teaching platform Top Hat will bring the startup one step closer to achieving just that.
Top Hat serves more than 400 universities, including Harvard and MIT locally. Through the company's cloud-based technology, professors are able to transform their students' mobile devices into powerful learning tools — "powerful learning tools" now including customizable textbooks aligned to a course syllabus.
The partnership integrates Boundless' content library of 21 subjects into Top Hat's teaching platform. All of the content is collaborative, meaning professors can contribute and edit material in real-time, to create content specific to their class and teaching style. They can then manage that content through Top Hat's single platform, freeing up their time to teach in a more engaged and efficient way.
Top Hat gives professors the ability to ask questions or start a discussion without ever leaving their slides. Presentations and assessments are merged to create a singular experience educators, and their students, can access from their phones. All student activity and attendance are automatically captured into an intuitive gradebook, making the platform even more convenient for teachers to use.
"We aim to be the dominant platform professors use to teach in the classroom," said Top Hat Co-founder and CEO Mike Silagadze in a statement. "Through our partnership with Boundless, we are bringing cutting-edge textbook technology to hundreds of thousands of university students already using Top Hat."
Boundless' collaborative educational content is expected to reach more than 300,000 students. Textbooks ring in at $40 for Top Hat users, a price far more affordable than the $100 or $200 sticker price seen slapped on other books.
At the end of the year, Boundless announced its new Teaching Platform, a tool professors can use to customize Boundless' textbook content, create their own quizzes or utilize pre-built, customizable lecture slides they're later able to share with their colleagues. Now, those features are being seen utilized by third-party platforms targeted at that audience.
And more third-party platforms, like Top Hat, can get involved.
Boundless content is now available via an API for seamless integration. Partners can now deliver affordable, digital teaching and learning materials, including textbooks and assessment questions, to their users.
"We want to give educators the tools they need to bring affordable and effective teaching resources into their classes," said Boundless Founder and CEO Ariel Diaz in a statement. "This type of deep, API-based content integration is something only Boundless can do, and we’re excited to bring our resources to Top Hat’s users.”
