Apollo Education Group starts nontraditional course catalog — from chronicle.com by Steve Kolowich
Excerpts:
The Apollo Education Group, the parent company of the University of Phoenix, is starting a website to help people find courses that teach skills they need to land specific jobs in the technology industry. Call it a course catalog for nontraditional courses, most of which have no connection to colleges’ degree programs.
The website, called Balloon and announced on Tuesday, will be pitched to adult learners who want to pick up skills that have been flagged by technology companies as requirements for certain job openings. The idea is to make recruiting more efficient for companies, while giving learners a better idea of what skills employers in the tech industry are looking for apart from the general ones indicated by a traditional degree, said Robert W. Wrubel, chief innovation officer at Apollo.