Must Read Papers February 10, 2015

Evidence of Learning: Understanding the Supplier Ecosystem

In the past several years, record amounts of investment capital have financed new companies serving – and targeting – US colleges and universities. These efforts often seek to enhance or shift established practices and processes, injecting innovative models and ideas into the existing postsecondary landscape. Across the Evidence of Learning framework, the diversity of stakeholders and unmet needs has, not surprisingly, spurred an expanding number of suppliers striving to bridge these gaps. Entrepreneurs, established companies and organizations, and community initiatives and associations offer disparate visions for how the Evidence of Learning concept may evolve and come into practice more fully, creating a cacophony of options for those advocating a path forward.

A Tyton Partners project created in partnership with The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, “Evidence of Learning: Understanding the Supplier Ecosystem,” discusses the role of suppliers in this complex system, with a particular emphasis on seven markets composed of companies and organizations that are partnering with students, institutions, and employers in complementary and competitive ways.

This publication furnishes postsecondary leaders with market mapping and analysis that provides perspective on the Evidence of Learning ecosystem and the positioning of companies that their institutions may be engaged with or evaluating. It also provides insight to company executives and investors active in the markets or looking for a point of entry.