User:Derek J Moore/sandbox/Anthology edtech

Anthology labels itself as an education technology company with the tagline "an infinite world of learning without boundaries". This US-based, private equity-owned company has high profile, five-year contracts with the University of the Free State and Pretoria University. The latter has been recognized for its efforts and has won numerous awards, including a High Impact Award and a Training and Professional Development Award.

Astra Acquisition Corp (doing business as Anthology), provides comprehensive cloud-based software solutions for higher educational institutions. These "solutions" include a Learning Management system (LMS), a student information systems (SIS) and customer relationship management system (CRM)  and Enterprise Resource Planning system (ERP). Oneconnect, who transforms technology into solutions for higher education institutions on the African continent, and Amazon Web Services, who provides South African cloud infrastructure are further enabled by a $250 million investment that enables their tertiary clients to use the above systems to seamlessly do recruitment, enrollment, student success, and alumni engagement, assessment management, student engagement, data visualisation and analytics.

History
Anthology has pitched itself as the "largest EdTech ecosystem, supporting over 150 million users in 80 countries". Their services are for those who follow the company's lifecycle engagement solution as a means to effect technology-led change. The companies global footprint was quickly established in 2020, when three independent services, Campus Management and Campus Labs and iModules were merged (or re-bundled ) into one single company, Anthology. With this package of proprietary solutions, the Anthology bundle, offers a much broader range of software and services than any of its competitors. While technical or vendor lock in might affect an individual institution's "data and infrastructural sovereignty". A comprehensive, globally scaled education technology ecosystem, which offers insights and improves outcomes, seems an "obvious" advantage.

Data-Driven Education in South Africa
Pretoria University, has been transparent and candid about adopting a data-driven system that offers real-time insights about students. Their initiatives (students’ success, teaching and learning initiatives) are informed by their data-based decision-making (DBDM) approach with both prescriptive and descriptive data-driven analytics. Real-time data is fed into learning analytics’ early alerts to prevent possible future problems, support students effectively, and enhance student success rates. The university has systematised its approach with a Student Academic Development and Excellence Model initiative, dubbed SADEM. Decision Intelligence Products, such as Pyramid Analytics, are used in conjunction with Anthology, to assist Pretoria University to gather student data with an evidence-based approach that improves student access and success.

Ed Tech Investment and how they shape higher education
The majority owners of Anthology are 1) Leeds Equity Partners, who invest exclusively in the Knowledge Industries, and 2) Veritas Capital, a private investment firm with over 100 acquisitions. They "imagine a particular future for education and work towards materialising that future". Whether organising and hosting events, summits or conferences, producing "reports, studies and market maps" that offer recommendations and advice to HE institutions and policymakers or the publishing of various rankings" Their proprietary platforms are so much more than a set of tools for academics and student success initiatives. UNESCO believes that their platforms affects and shapes educational governance..

Education Technology, not academics, nor policy, students or a counties citizens, are shaping education. . Venture Capital's multi-billion dollar investments are extremely influential to "accelerating the evolution of the technology landscape in higher education" and "saving" the university. .