Friday, February 8, 2002

Fathom Adds Corporate Training to Its Distance-Education Offerings By MICHAEL ARNONE Fathom, the for-profit, online-learning provider run by Columbia University, has added corporate-training courses to its academic and cultural offerings in a bid to market itself to corporate achievers and job hunters. The move is the latest change in direction the company has made in its search for customers and investors in the competitive distance-education market. Columbia announced Wednesday that four for-profit education companies -- SmartForce, Zoologic, the Kaplan Colleges, and PrimeLearning -- are now offering mostly noncredit courses on business-related subjects through Fathom's Professional Development Learning Center. The arrangement brings several hundred new courses into Fathom's online catalog and marks roughly a 20-percent increase in the number of courses Fathom offers, said Anne Rollow, vice president for strategic alliances and marketing at Fathom. The deal also represents a greater focus by the company on professional education and training to corporate customers. People looking to enhance their skills in their current jobs or improve their chances of finding new ones want to take training courses, Ms. Rollow said. Fathom offers courses normally available only to people who work for large corporations willing to foot the bills for the courses. The partnerships will benefit Fathom in the short run because Fathom needs the money that the courses will generate, said A. Frank Mayadas, program director of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Asynchronous Learning Network and an expert on distance learning. Ann G. Kirschner, Fathom's president, said last summer that Columbia had subsidized virtually the entire project -- to the tune of about $20-million -- to keep Fathom afloat. Fathom's original financial setup -- it was to get a percentage from sales of distance-education courses and books -- failed to bring in expected profits. To draw more customers and investors, Fathom has been marketing shorter, noncredit courses and spreading its offerings beyond the strictly academic. It formed an alliance with the AARP last August to bring online courses to the association's 35 million members. Mr. Mayadas wondered, though, how much the move toward a business clientele meshes with Fathom's original mission to deliver high-quality academic content. "In some ways, it's a natural evolution of what Fathom has started to do," he said. But he noted that "this kind of training is aimed at a very different kind of customer" than one looking for academic content. He said he wonders whether anyone taking corporate-oriented courses would want to take academic and cultural courses, or vice versa. "It dilutes their brand," he said. "What do they want to be known for?" The corporate-training angle falls within the original conception of Fathom as an online destination for high-quality content, Ms. Rollow said. Fathom has offered for-credit business courses for quite a while and offers noncredit and for-credit programs in many different subjects. The four companies provide courses in technical training, marketing, and management that range from one or two hours to a semester in length, Ms. Rollow said. Prices vary from $25 for short modules on closing a sale to $450 for a semester-long course in income-tax planning. Students sign up and pay for the courses through the Fathom Web site. Most of the courses are noncredit, but a few by Zoologic offer professional certification in particular subjects. Ms. Rollow said the companies won't become full partners in the Fathom consortium, which includes institutions such as the University of Chicago, the New York Public Library, and the London School of Economics and Political Science. The companies instead will provide courses through Fathom, as do institutions like the University of California at Los Angeles Extension and the University of Washington. Ms. Rollow declined to reveal any other details of the business arrangement. The consortium members have strict quality guidelines that prospective course providers must abide by, Ms. Rollow said. The Media Evaluation Group at Columbia's Teachers College reviews every course to make sure it meets proper pedagogical standards and student support. Background articles from The Chronicle: Columbia University's Fathom Seeks Users Among 'New Yorker' Readers (11/16/2001) Fathom Signs Deal With AARP (8/10/2001) Is Anyone Making Money on Distance Education? (2/16/2001) Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

Bush supports Senate bill on charity incentives that could aid colleges Emory U. starts review of controversial book on history of gun ownership in America Scholars group questions those bemoaning state of academic freedom on campuses Most college students in poll report changing behavior in response to September 11 Canadian students hold nationwide protests over tuition increases U.S. House votes to expand research on computer security Canadian universities will create an online portal for studying texts A professor bets on jai alai -- with computer models Fathom adds corporate training to its distance-education offerings