GlobalScholar was an operating unit of

Scantron Scantron Corporation is an American company based in Eagan, Minnesota. Scantron provides assessment solutions and technology services for business, education, certification, and government clients. Scantron Assessment Solutions deals with scan ...

based in

Bellevue, Washington Bellevue ( ) is a city in the Eastside (King County, Washington), Eastside region of King County, Washington, United States, located across Lake Washington from Seattle. It is the third-largest city in the Seattle metropolitan area, and the f ...

, that developed, manufactured, licensed, and supported a wide range of products and services related to education. This included products such as an

enterprise resource planning Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is the integrated management of main business processes, often in real time and mediated by software and technology. ERP is usually referred to as a category of business management software—typically a suit ...

(ERP) software, Pinnacle Suite, which supported all aspects of managing education at K-12 schools, including a gradebook, learning management system (LMS), and teacher development, analytics and online learning. GlobalScholar.com was the company's on-demand

collaboration platform Collaborative software or groupware is application software designed to help people working on a common task to attain their goals. One of the earliest definitions of groupware is "intentional group processes plus software to support them." Regar ...

for tutors, parents, and students. Parents and students could find pre-screened tutors on a variety of subjects and school levels, and pay for one-time homework help or engage in ongoing tutoring sessions. The sessions occurred on GlobalScholar's website, which provides an

online In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity, and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed as "on lin ...

whiteboard A whiteboard (also known as marker board, dry-erase board, dry-wipe board, and pen-board) is a glossy, usually white surface for making non-permanent markings. Whiteboards are analogous to blackboards, but with a smoother surface allowing for ...

, audio/video IM,

archiving An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials, in any medium, or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organ ...

, and billing. GlobalScholar also operated two other websites, launched in January 2008. SchoolFinder pulled together relevant information for elementary and

high schools A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...

and let parents compare one school against another. CollegeFinder did the same for colleges, pulling in rankings from

U.S. News ''U.S. News & World Report'' (''USNWR'', ''US NEWS'') is an American media company publishing news, consumer advice, rankings, and analysis. The company was launched in 1948 as the merger of domestic-focused weekly newspaper ''U.S. News'' and ...

& World Report and

The Princeton Review The Princeton Review is an education services company providing tutoring, test preparation and admission resources for students. It was founded in 1981, and since that time has worked with over 400 million students. Services are delivered by 4, ...

History

GlobalScholar, formally known as InfiLearn, was founded in December 2006 by Kal Raman, a former drugstore.com chief executive and

Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc., doing business as Amazon, is an American multinational technology company engaged in e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. Founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos in Bellevu ...

senior vice president. GlobalScholar.com acquired Central Data Corporation's adaptable learning and educational scaffold assets along with the GlobalScholar name in 2007, using these as the baseline for the initial InfilLearn product. GlobalScholar.com made a strategic decision on January 31, 2008, to acquire Excelsior Software. In October 2013, Scantron formally retired the GlobalScholar brand and stopped development and support on several products.

Funding

The company secured $27 million in round B funding on January 31, 2008 from existing investors Ignition Partners and Knowledge Universe Education. This was on top of a previously undisclosed $15.5 Million of Round A funding the company raised early 2007. The funding included additional investments from Knowledge Universe Education, a leading global education company; Ignition Partners, a premier

venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

firm; and an added investment from Peter Neupert, an existing board member; Excelsior Software, with long-standing relationships in the education community, was also acquired.

References

{{Reflist, 30em Online companies of the United States Distance education in the United States Educational technology companies of the United States