Pearson launches free college software

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Kenneth Green directs the Campus Computing Project, which studies technology use in higher education. Pearson is one of its funders. He estimates colleges spend more than $1.5 billion a year on learning management systems. For years, the market has been dominated by a company called Blackboard. Pearson is taking on Blackboard by offering its OpenClass system for free. There are free open source learning management systems like Moodle and Sakai, but Green says colleges have to pay for care and feeding.

Green: The tagline that many of us use to describe open source is, “It’s not a free beer, it’s a free puppy.” You take it home, you still have support costs for the puppy.

Pearson’s Matt Leavy says his company will pay for all that.