NEW YORK and ORLANDO, Fla., July 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBB) and McGraw-Hill Higher Education, a unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE: MHP), today announced a business partnership to introduce a new, best of class learning management offering that joins McGraw-Hill's media-rich content, assessment engines, and industry leading adaptive learning tools with the latest capabilities of Blackboard's Web-based teaching and learning platform, Blackboard Learn™.

Through the partnership, the companies will make McGraw-Hill's content and digital tools available to institutions that are already using Blackboard Learn to enhance workflow and access to these resources in one place.

This initiative will bring together the robust capabilities of Blackboard Learn with McGraw-Hill Connect, an all digital higher education learning platform and McGraw-Hill's custom publishing system that allows instructors to also incorporate third party content. The combination will enhance ease of use for faculty and student users of the McGraw-Hill and Blackboard Learn product suites. This is the first time Blackboard has enabled the full integration of a major educational publisher's content and digital tools.

"This partnership takes advantage of each company's clear areas of expertise to improve the course and content experience for students and faculty in a variety of settings," said Ray Henderson, President of Blackboard Learn. "This step makes it easier for educators to find, create and share high quality content as part of the existing workflow for users of Blackboard Learn."

Access to McGraw-Hill Connect, which covers 34 academic disciplines and includes more than 250 titles, will be significantly expanded. McGraw-Hill's platform is currently being used by more than 1.8 million students and instructors at some 600 colleges and universities nationwide. The integration with Blackboard Learn will allow students and faculty to use their campus Blackboard® login to access the full suite of McGraw-Hill Connect content and tools. Additionally, scores for McGraw-Hill Connect assignments, quizzes and tests will post directly to the Blackboard gradebook, eliminating the need for students and instructors to manage access and updates in two separate systems.

"McGraw-Hill Education is committed to helping students and instructors succeed by offering increased access to digital learning solutions," said Peter C. Davis, President of McGraw-Hill Education. "By fully integrating the two companies' capabilities, we are creating a comprehensive digital environment where professors and students can access everything they need to succeed in the course in one location."

The integrations will create seamless access to McGraw-Hill Connect to manage course content, create assignments and track student performance. In addition, users will also gain access to a range of popular tools that come with the platform, including adaptive assessment to deliver customized learning content based on student strengths and weaknesses, and lecture capture to give students the ability to easily find key information from lectures to review at their own pace. Both the new learning management offering and the integration for Blackboard Learn are expected to be ready for classroom use in early 2011. McGraw-Hill Connect will also continue to be available separately.  

As part of the partnership, McGraw-Hill becomes a Blackboard Strategic Partner™ in the Blackboard Alliance Program™. The announcement was made at BbWorld®, Blackboard's annual user conference held in Orlando, Florida.

To learn more about Blackboard Learn, please visit http://www.blackboard.com/Teaching-Learning/Learn-Platform.aspx. To learn more about McGraw-Hill Connect, please visit http://www.mcgraw-hillconnect.com

About Blackboard Inc.

Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBB) is a global leader in enterprise technology and innovative solutions that improve the experience of millions of students and learners around the world every day. Blackboard's solutions allow thousands of higher education, K-12, professional, corporate, and government organizations to extend teaching and learning online, facilitate campus commerce and security, and communicate more effectively with their communities. Founded in 1997, Blackboard is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with offices in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

About McGraw-Hill Higher Education:

McGraw-Hill Higher Education, a unit of McGraw-Hill Education, is a leading innovator in the development of 21st century teaching and learning digital solutions for postsecondary and higher education markets worldwide. Through a comprehensive range of traditional and digital education content and tools focused on improving student learning outcomes, McGraw-Hill Higher Education empowers and prepares professionals and students to connect, learn and succeed in the global economy. McGraw-Hill Education, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE: MHP), has offices in 33 countries and publishes in more than 65 languages. Additional information is available at http://www.mheducation.com.

Any statements in this press release about future expectations, plans and prospects for Blackboard and other statements containing the words "believes," "anticipates," "plans," "expects," "will," and similar expressions, constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including the factors discussed in the "Risk Factors" section of our Form 10-Q filed on May 7, 2010 with the SEC. In addition, the forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of July 14, 2010. The Company anticipates that subsequent events and developments will cause the Company's views to change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to July 14, 2010.

SOURCE Blackboard Inc.