Friday, September 13, 2002

Stanford Professor's Company Will Market Software for Economics Courses By DAN CARNEVALE A company founded by a Stanford University professor will market a software supplement for economics courses that will let students learn about supply-and-demand curves and other concepts by buying and selling imaginary goods online. The company, called Aplia Inc., was founded by Paul Romer, a Stanford economics professor, and Scott McRae, a software developer. They plan to announce the marketing campaign on Monday. The courseware they developed works as a software platform, like WebCT and Blackboard, but also includes content that professors can customize. Students who use the courseware can solve economics problems using interactive tools. Professors can also set up mock trading markets, allowing students to trade goods with Internet exercises. The software tracks the trading and adjusts the market prices accordingly. Mr. Romer says the courseware is useful both for online courses and for getting students in traditional courses to spend more time learning material before a lecture. "They can actually experience what trading is like instead of just reading about it," he says. "This is the stuff that I wanted when I was teaching but couldn't get." When Mr. Romer and Mr. McRae saw how popular the courseware was with students and other professors, they decided to start a business. Aplia has secured $11.2-million in financing from Skandia, a company based in Sweden. So far 120 other institutions are using the courseware, serving 8,000 students. Most of those institutions are using the software free, because they helped test it. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

Default rate on student loans increases for the first time since 1990 Princeton again tops "U.S. News" rankings Report on intellectual-property rights urges looser standards for poor countries Librarians' skepticism grows on deals for electronic journals from Elsevier Stanford professor's company will market software for economics courses