News for and about the Internet2 community

[Angela Stark <>]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

Unizin Grows To Ten With Three New Founding Members

 

Unizin Membership Expands to Include University of Iowa, Ohio State, and

Penn State

 

EMERYVILLE, Calif., Dec. 18, 2014—Unizin is proud to welcome the University of Iowa, The Ohio State University and The Pennsylvania State University as founding members. Unizin is a university-owned and directed consortium that provides standards-based Digital Education infrastructure for its members.

 

"We believe learning analytics and flexible access to course content will be increasingly important for our students and faculty in the future," said Barry Butler, University of Iowa Executive Vice President and Provost. "We are excited to be able to explore these areas with the other members of Unizin."

 

“Collaboration is integral to growth at a university,” added Nick Jones, Executive Vice President and Provost of Penn State. “Penn State is looking forward to contributing to and learning from our new partnership with Unizin.”

 

The three universities join Indiana University, Colorado State University, the University of Michigan, the University of Florida, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Oregon State University and the University of Minnesota as founding members.

 

"At its core, our involvement in Unizin is focused on the great work of our faculty," said Ohio State Provost Joseph Steinmetz. "The Unizin emphasis on shared toolsets, predictive analytics and learner assessment will help us to evaluate student success and respond quickly in the rapidly evolving world of higher education."

 

In addition to gathering analytics data to evaluate the effectiveness of learning materials, Unizin is building an ecosystem to provide a platform for sharing and improving digital content.

 

“Adding a new node to a network or a member to a collaboration increases the value of that enterprise exponentially. It is great to see the Unizin consortium come to fruition," said Dave King, Associate Provost of Outreach and Engagement at Oregon State University. "We welcome these institutions as partners and thought leaders in shaping the next generation of higher education technology.”

 

"The vision we put forward less than a year ago has already attracted ten world-class institutions," said Amin Qazi, Unizin CEO. "This is strong evidence the Academy sees the value in staying in control of our data, students, content, and brand. Unizin is committed to protecting universities’ interests."

 

Unizin continues to explore cloud-scale integration of many leading solutions to extend the full capabilities of its digital learning ecosystem.

 

For more information, including Unizin membership, frequently asked questions and updates, visit unizin.org or contact . 

 

About Unizin

The Unizin consortium, launched by Colorado State University, the University of Florida, Indiana University and the University of Michigan, will provide a common technological platform delivered over higher education’s community-owned national research and education network operated by Internet2. Unizin operates as an unincorporated association at Internet2, a leading not for profit global technology organization with more than 450 member institutions across the higher education, government and business communities. For more on Unizin, see www.unizin.org

 

Media Contact: Carolann Samuels, 303-495-2999 or .