KILLING BRAINSTORM: One of higher education’s biggest software players, Ellucian, has decided to put the brakes on a tool it purchased less than two years ago. Phil Hill of e-Literate reports that the company will stop supporting Brainstorm, a competency-based education (CBE) platform acquired from Helix Education, due to “insufficient market demand for full CBE programs, with many schools looking to ease into CBE in a minimalist fashion.”
A gnarlier issue, he suggests, may be that the Department of Education accreditors aren’t wholly convinced of the merits of CBE programs. Hill notes that Ellucian has been proactive about alerting Brainstorm users and offering refund and transition support services.