Boundless was an American company, founded in 2011, which created free and low-cost
textbooks
A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbooks are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions. Schoolbooks are textbook ...
and distributed them online. In April 2015, it was acquired by
Valore.
The combined company is based in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
,
.
In May 2017, it was announced that Boundless course materials would not be available after September 2017.
Lumen Learning archived the Boundless collection on the Lumen platform.
History
Boundless was founded in March 2011 by Ariel Diaz, Aaron White, and Brian Balfour.
The company raised $1.7 million in funding during 2011.
In March 2012, the company was sued by three publishers:
Pearson Education
Pearson Education is a British-owned education publishing and assessment service to schools and corporations, as well for students directly. Pearson owns educational media brands including Addison–Wesley, Peachpit, Prentice Hall, eCollege, ...
,
Cengage Learning
Cengage Group is an American educational content, technology, and services company for the higher education, K-12, professional, and library markets. It operates in more than 20 countries around the world.(Jun 27, 2014Global Publishing Leaders ...
, and Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishing Group (owned by
Macmillan Publishers
Macmillan Publishers (occasionally known as the Macmillan Group; formally Macmillan Publishers Ltd and Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC) is a British publishing company traditionally considered to be one of the 'Big Five' English language publi ...
). Among other allegations, the lawsuit claims that "Boundless textbooks copy the distinctive selection, arrangement, and presentation of Plaintiffs’ textbooks, along with other original text, imagery, and protected expression of Plaintiffs and their authors, all in violation of the Copyright Act."
On December 17, 2013, the company announced that the lawsuit had been settled. Terms of the settlement are confidential.
Boundless raised an additional $8 million in
venture capital
Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...
funding in April 2012.
In January 2013, the company claimed that students at over 2000 colleges in the United States were using its textbooks.
It was acquired by
Valore, another company in the Boston area, in April 2015.
Valore was acquired by
Follet, a
Westchester, Illinois
Westchester is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is a western suburb of Chicago. The population was 16,892 at the 2020 census. The current Village President is Nick Steker, serving in the special role of acting president after ...
-based education-products company, in November 2016.
Products
The company's textbooks consisted of educational material taken from free and open sources.
This material is often referred to as "
open educational resources
Open educational resources (OER) are Instructional materials, teaching, learning, and research materials intentionally created and Free license, licensed to be free for the end user to own, share, and in most cases, modify. The term "OER" descri ...
" (OER). Some of the source material included
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
, the
Encyclopedia of Earth
The ''Encyclopedia of Earth'' (abbreviated ''EoE'') is an electronic reference about the Earth, its natural environments, and their interaction with society. The ''Encyclopedia'' is described as a free, fully searchable collection of articles ...
, and government web sites.
The company edited the material and arranged it to create a text in the form of an e-book. In some cases the company also provided study tools, such as
flashcard
A flashcard or flash card (also known as an index card) is a card bearing information on both sides, which is intended to be used as an aid in memorization. Each flashcard bears a question on one side and an answer on the other. Flashcards are ...
s and quizzes.
The company offered textbooks in over 20 subjects.
The company provided two types of books. In an "open" textbook, the contents of each chapter and the arrangement of chapters were defined by the company. In its "alternative" textbooks, the material was arranged in a way that was very similar to a specific, commercially available textbook. Alternative textbooks allowed students to follow class reading and assignments that were based on a commercial text. Each chapter in its alternative texts covered the same concepts as the corresponding chapter in the similar commercial textbook, but using open education resources.
In August 2013, the company began to charge a per-book fee for alternative textbooks. It continued to provide open textbooks (with fewer interactive features) for free.
The company launched its "Boundless Teaching Platform" in December 2013. The teaching platform was free. According to the company, the teaching platform allowed instructors to customize the order of textbooks and monitor students' activity through the company's texts.
See also
*
BenchPrep
BenchPrep is an American company that provides cloud-based study guides for standardized tests, professional certifications, and K-12 classroom learning. It has partnered with educational publishers such as McGraw Hill, John Wiley & Sons, and the ...
*
Chegg
Chegg, Inc., is an American education technology company based in Santa Clara, California. It provides homework help, digital and physical textbook rentals, textbooks, online tutoring, and other student services.
The company was launched in 2005 ...
*
CourseSmart
CourseSmart, a privately held company headquartered in San Mateo, California founded in 2007, was a provider of eTextbooks and digital course materials. It was acquired by Ingram Content Group subsidiary VitalSource Technologies in early 2014, an ...
*
Flat World Knowledge
FlatWorld is a publisher of college-level textbooks and educational supplements for a worldwide audience founded in 2007 as Flat World Knowledge by Eric Frank and Jeff Shelstad. It was acquired at the end of 2016 by Alastair Adam and John Eielson ...
*
Inkling
*
Kno
Kno, Inc. was a software company that worked with publishers to offer digital textbooks and other educational materials. In November 2013, after raising nearly $100 million in venture capital, the company was acquired by Intel. The website was ...
*
open educational resources
Open educational resources (OER) are Instructional materials, teaching, learning, and research materials intentionally created and Free license, licensed to be free for the end user to own, share, and in most cases, modify. The term "OER" descri ...
*
OER Commons
OER Commons (OER for ''open educational resources'') is a freely accessible online library that allows teachers and others to search and discover open educational resources (OER) and other freely available instructional materials.
History
OER Com ...
*
OpenStax
OpenStax (formerly OpenStax College) is a nonprofit educational technology initiative based at Rice University. Since 2012, OpenStax has created peer-reviewed, openly-licensed textbooks, which are available in free digital formats and for a low c ...
References
{{Wikipedia
Ebook suppliers
Companies established in 2011
Publishing companies established in 2011
Book publishing companies based in Massachusetts
Educational technology companies of the United States
Open educational resources