KNO IT ALL: ACT, the nonprofit organization best known for its college entrance test by the same name, has acquired K-12 open educational resources (OER) curator Knovation. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
In acquiring Knovation, which is considered a pioneer in offering free, high-quality educational content, ACT gains access to the company’s assets. These include the Knovation Content Collection, digital resources for K-12 schools and districts; netTrekker, an app where students search for and share instructional content; and icurio, a digital curriculum application that helps educators plan and teach lessons.
When it was founded 19 years ago, Knovation was called Thinkronize. It soon gained recognition for—and started going by the name of—its first product netTrekker. The company rebranded to its current name in 2012.
The deal is the latest in a series of strategic business moves that ACT has made in recent years. Others include the recent acquisitions of AIG, a company that provides automatically generated test questions; the National Research Center for College and University Admissions (NRCCUA), a college recruiting service; OpenEd and ProExam. The nonprofit has also invested in Open Assessment Technologies, Smart Sparrow and New Markets Venture Partners.
