EdTech company Anthology navigates modern education with AI-powered tools and solutions

In the ever-evolving world of education, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a powerful force, revolutionizing the way educational institutions teach, learn, and prepare students for a rapidly changing future.

Anthology, a leading provider of education solutions, is at the forefront of this transformative journey, introducing ground-breaking AI-powered tools designed to revolutionize learning experiences. From course-building tools to career alignment intelligent experiences, Anthology invites the educational sector to embrace these cutting-edge technologies and embark on a path towards creating future-ready classrooms and agile-learning students.

Cultivating 21st-century skills for work-readiness

Over the last three years, the world experienced drastic economic shifts and extreme job market volatility. More than ever, the tight competition for jobs requires fresh graduates and long-time professionals to reskill or upskill at an agile rate. Students and educators also face the same pressing concern.

A recent survey from Anthology found nearly 40 percent of students were concerned about finding a job after graduation as they considered enrolling and choosing a program of study.

With tools like Occupation Insight, Anthology Milestone, and Anthology Student, students can now align their courses with desired careers and track their progress. This ensures that learners acquire the skills necessary for the job market and explore alternate career paths.

Anthology’s Intelligent Experiences (iX) aims to connect data across different learning systems and deliver personalized and actionable insights to students and educators.

“We know data has the power to change everything at institutions but too often the answer is complex integrations that are long on promise and short on insight,” said Jim Milton, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Anthology. “Today, the next chapter of Intelligent Experiences is building actionable insight right into the Anthology ecosystem, delivering a personalized experience designed to drive successful outcomes right where and when learners, instructors, and staffers need it.”

Competing in the evolving economy demands alignment of both students’ skills and the landscape of the industry they’re entering. With data flowing between labor market tool Occupation Insight, skills tool Anthology Milestone, and student information system Anthology Student, learners are now on track to earn the skills needed for a job in their desired field and explore how these obtained skills can also match other careers.

“The motivating force for so many learners today is securing a fulfilling career in their field of choice,” said JD White, Chief Product Officer at Anthology. “With Intelligent Experiences, learners can follow a clear, skills-based path through their academic journey to achieve that outcome.”

Early intervention is key to academic success

Student support is critical throughout any academic journey. Early interventions can help struggling students to get back on track with their goals and achieve outcomes that translate to key competencies. Another Intelligent Experience provides advisors with useful student engagement data to enable them to identify areas for improvement at an early stage.

Blackboard Learn’s Progress Tracking combined with Anthology’s lifecycle engagement CRM tool, Anthology Reach, empowers advisors with robust and easy-to-assess student engagement data like how a student’s participation rate compares to peers and course performance predictions.

“Advisors are balancing a caseload of potentially hundreds of students, a responsibility that makes providing personalized progress tracking and intervention a herculean task,” said White. “By connecting data from Blackboard Learn and Anthology Reach, we are building a more powerful early intervention tool for advisors that enables them to quickly identify learners at risk to surround them with the support they need as early as possible.”

Accelerating innovation with Microsoft

Leveraging AI across its educational solutions is a key differentiator for Anthology. The company’s mission to provide dynamic, data-informed experiences to the global education community is the driving force for its most recent collaboration with Microsoft.

Microsoft helps Anthology incorporate generative AI capabilities into its EdTech solutions. This unlocks opportunities for personalized student engagement, advanced data analytics, and improved administrative processes.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with Microsoft to drive the next wave of innovation in education and open a world of possibilities for the global education community,” said White. “While other vendors might be looking at AI within a point solution, Anthology is assessing the power of generative AI technology across our vast stack of EdTech solutions. By thoughtfully integrating AI into our ecosystem, we can harness its power to foster innovation. The collaboration with Microsoft ensures these solutions are scalable, secure, and seamlessly integrated into existing educational ecosystems, making them easily accessible to institutions worldwide.”

Navigating the complexities of modern education

Anthology’s AI-powered course building tools within Blackboard Learn are key innovations aimed at inspiring instructors to create more engaging courses more quickly.

These tools can suggest a possible course structure aligned to learning outcomes, generate images, suggest test questions and grading rubrics and drive toward more authentic assessment.

“From the beginning, our team has been building a Learning Management System that, as part of a broader Anthology ecosystem, delivers meaningful, data-informed experiences that drive student success,” Milton said. “This announcement is the next step along that journey, with features that simplify and streamline instructor processes while connecting data from the LMS and across the institution to deliver unprecedented insight.”

Anthology’s Trustworthy AI Framework demonstrates the company’s commitment to ethical and responsible use of AI as they launch new course-building capabilities in Blackboard Learn. Now the LMS allows instructors to develop more engaging learning experiences more effectively and efficiently. Institutions continue to choose the powerful benefits of Blackboard Learn Ultra. The number of courses taught in Learn Ultra has increased by 50 percent since June 2022 and take-up is increasing at an accelerating pace in 2023.

“Traditionally, the LMS has been a static environment, focused on the management of the learning process,” explained White. “With these new AI-powered features, we are fundamentally changing the equation by providing an experience that can deeply inspire in the pedagogical process. It means instructors can build more engaging courses more quickly.”

Navigating the complexities of modern education is a growing reality for most educators, but at the heart of it all, the key to any transition is enabling institutions to take targeted actions to support student success. That means leveraging and maximizing AI by infusing it with existing EdTech solutions responsibly.