ProQuest SIPX Launches Three New Course Materials Solutions that Reduce Costs for Students and Improve Workflow Efficiency

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA, October 8, 2015 – ProQuest SIPX, provider of the most complete digital course materials solutions in higher education, has launched three new options to support unique teaching and learning workflows:  SIPX Central, SIPX Campus and SIPX for MOOCs. The SIPX innovative digital course materials solutions address a variety of copyright and costs concerns for universities. By connecting students to materials that are open access or already purchased and available to them through their university library, the SIPX solutions have saved its customers and students $3.67M to date.

The new options offer more customization to schools. SIPX Central is a scalable user-self-service configuration that enables anyone at the school to set up course readings.

Schools that wish to leverage the expertise of their libraries, bookstores, copyshops, instructional technology departments or other single campus units to set up course readings for instructors benefit from SIPX Campus, which supports these mediated workflows in the most time- and cost-effective manner.

With SIPX for MOOCs, the SIPX service team helps institutions quickly and easily set up course readings for global online classes. SIPX for MOOCs applies deep geography-based publisher discounts to make content more affordable. It also accelerates course launches by simplifying copyright permissions. SIPX and Coursera, an education platform for online courses, have crafted a limited time special offer that enables Coursera Partners to get their first SIPX MOOC request at no charge.

All three SIPX solutions are affordable, sustainable, easy to implement and offer benefits to stakeholders across campus:

• Students typically save 20-35 percent in course materials costs.
• Instructors have more visibility to relevant content that is available at no charge to students, including open access and library subscriptions, when they assign curriculum readings. They are also supported with intuitive tools for sharing non-subscribed copyrighted materials compliantly. Further, SIPX’s useful analytics enable them to see students’ engagement with their reading assignments.
• Administrators and Deans can optimize and streamline their campus operations while driving student success, supporting quality curricula and lowering the cost of education.
• IT Directors can easily integrate SIPX into their existing LMS and teaching platforms with SIPX’s cloud-based, scalable technology.
• Instructional Technologists can leverage a fast and easy copyright and content tool to support all types of teaching, including online education innovations and MOOCs.
• Librarians get more use out of their collections investments and more insight into the content their campus needs for teaching and online education. SIPX also delivers savings of more than 50 percent in student permissions.

Innovative libraries, including Notre Dame Hesburgh Libraries and Pepperdine University Libraries have used SIPX solutions to achieve success for their campus.

“Not only does ProQuest SIPX create significant efficiencies in our e-reserves workflow, but in one semester the service saved the Hesburgh Libraries more than our annual cost to use the tool,” said John Wang, Associate University Librarian at University of Notre Dame Hesburgh Libraries.

“As an early adopter of SIPX’s Sakai connection for e-reserves, we were thrilled to work closely with our university’s technology department to tie the library’s content into the key classroom technology on campus,” said Grace Ye, Digital Systems Librarian at Pepperdine University Libraries. “We gained a deeper connection between our two organizations.”

“By using the SIPX service, I was able to offer reading materials from [about] 20 different publishers to students in over 140 countries, legally, with pricing tailored to support maximum participation,” said Dan McFarland, Professor at Stanford University, of his experience using SIPX as a MOOC instructor.

“Since we started the SIPX service as a research project at Stanford, we’ve seen results similar to the success at Notre Dame and Pepperdine happen across a broad range of schools and online education initiatives,” said Franny Lee, ProQuest SIPX General Manager. “We’re expanding their options with these new scalable, configurable, flexible solutions so that schools can continue in their unique ways to deliver high quality education. We designed SIPX Central, SIPX Campus and SIPX for MOOCs to support institutions in what they do best.”

Schools interested in learning more about the most complete course materials solution in higher education can contact ProQuest SIPX at sales@sipx.com for a complimentary consultation.

About ProQuest SIPX (www.sipx.com)

A growing leader in digital content and online education, ProQuest SIPX provides proven cost-saving and scalable technology solutions to manage and share course materials under the SIPX^® and ProQuest^® brands. Developed from a Stanford University research project, the system draws together open access and OER materials, comprehensive publisher content and library holdings into an intuitive web interface that allows faculty or support staff to set up and share course readings with students.

ProQuest SIPX’s unique technology makes access to course materials cost-efficient, easy and transparent, including recognizing individual user contexts that permit free or reduced cost access because of factors like library subscription affiliations or a student’s geography. The solution supports many use cases, including seamless integrations with Learning Management Systems, library course reserves services, bookstore and copyshop coursepacks, distance education, continuing studies and global open online courses/MOOCs.

Reported results from using SIPX: average savings of 20-35% for students on course materials, over 50% savings for library reserves permissions budgets, copyright-compliance for the university and flexibility to support a wide range of faculty’s preferred teaching platforms, granular analytics insights for school and library on course material selection and student engagement, as well as cost-recovery opportunities for school- and instructor-owned copyrights.