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Pearson Publishing Forms Online Education Alliance with
Questia Media, Inc.
Pearson Education Partners with Questia to Expand e-Education Space
LONDON (August 29, 2000) In its continuing mission to drive technology into the education market, Pearson Education, the publishing arm of Pearson Plc has signed an agreement to license the electronic rights of hundreds, and potentially thousands, of titles to Questia Media, Inc. The partnership will put Pearson content directly in the hands of Questia's valuable subscriber base -- college students worldwide. Pearson plays an integral role in Questia's efforts to build the first-of-its-kind online research service for undergraduates. At launch in January 2001, the site will feature unlimited access to 50,000 liberal arts books and journals, growing to 250,000 by 2003.
“As the world's largest educational publisher, we could have partnered with any number of companies; we chose Questia because they are providing broad availability of scholarly information to support learning,” said Jim Green, President of Pearson Higher Education. “While traditional e-book companies focus on sales of individual titles, which inherently limits the potential reach of their works, Questia is focused on providing unlimited access to all the books and journals in its collection.”
Pearson and Questia are both investing considerable capital to create quality products and services for e-education. As the world's largest digitization project, Questia is a complementary partner for Pearson Education, which publishes more than 60,000 educational, reference and professional titles and programs that are utilized in 40 countries around the world. In turn, the Questia service will provide researchers with a hyperlinked online collection of 50,000 scholarly books and journals combined with a suite of writing tools that will make composing papers faster and easier.
“Pearson's focus and goals are remarkably in sync with Questia's,” Green said. “We are both dedicated to producing the very best education tools and providing the highest level of service to customers. Our imprints stand for quality, consistency and innovation in education, and we are eager to contribute to Questia's online collection.”
“As the e-education trend continues to gain momentum, Questia is poised to provide an integral platform for the education market,” said Troy Williams, CEO and founder of Questia. “Research is a critical element in any higher education curriculum, and today, a student's ability to effectively conduct online research is limited by the lack of credible, high quality resources available. At Questia, we plan to transform the way research is done by providing access to a comprehensive collection of previously published, academic books and journals.”
Pearson Education will provide Questia the rights to deep backlist titles, as well as newer works. The Pearson titles in the Questia collection will be humanities and social science-focused, including history, literature and sociology reference works.
Pearson Publishing has made its mark as an innovative publishing house. As a leader in online, interactive communications, they recognize the benefits that Questia brings to the entire industry, via its unique pay-per-view model. This model will generate increased revenues for current, backlist, and out-of-print titles. Since Questia will provide subscribers with unlimited access to the full text of all titles, publishers can maximize their profits since no book is ever unavailable.
With $135 million in funding, Questia continues to digitize a high volume of selected liberal arts titles from more than 95 publishers.
About Pearson
Pearson Education was created in November 1998 following the merger of Addison Wesley Longman, Financial Times Management and Simon & Schuster's educational business to become the world's largest educational publisher. Pearson is committed to serving the cause of education and seizing its chance to play a full role in helping people learn all around the world.
About Questia
Founded in 1998, Questia Media, Inc. is building the first online service to provide unlimited access to the full text of hundreds of thousands of books and journals, as well as tools to easily use this information. For millions of college students and researchers, the QuestiaSMservice will enable them to efficiently research and compose papers at any time, from every connected corner of the world. Based in Houston with over 240 employees, Questia is delivering on the true promise of the Internet by providing access to a wealth of human knowledge.
Media:
Richards/Gravelle Public Relations
Stacie Barnett (214) 891-2910
stacie_barnett@richards.com
