London, 11/10/23 – Kortext, a global leader in digital learning and student engagement solutions in higher education, announces key sector partnerships following the launch of Kortext Premium – a suite of next-generation, AI-powered study tools that, added to the Kortext bookshelf and Learning Account, gives more agency to students in their studying and highlights learning engagement to universities.
In this significant enhancement of its Arcturus platform, Kortext leads the sector in applying GPT technology within an Azure context, to deliver generative AI to referenced content sources, through a range of study tools. This has the power to transform the way students and educators alike can engage with digital learning materials and support their teaching and learning in new ways.
Kortext has worked extensively with Microsoft on this development, and as a Global Managed Gold Partner of Microsoft has had access to the latest technologies in supporting the application of AI in the development of student engagement tools.
By utilising this capability within Kortext Premium, students will be able to save time by summarising selected content in seconds, creating study notes encapsulating key information in easily digestible lists, testing their knowledge, translating content into multiple languages and generating references/citations in all key styles to incorporate into essays and assignments.
Additionally, for the first time, students will be able to organise all their study materials in one easy location and facilitate collaboration around their content, all backed up in the Microsoft Azure Cloud. As a further element of Kortext Premium, students will have access to a large collection of additional educational resources, across all subject areas, to help support their studies.
Commenting on the launch of Kortext Premium, James Gray, CEO stated:
“We are excited to be leading the sector with the launch of Kortext Premium, an unparalleled package of generative AI-powered study tools.
We believe this new technology offers huge benefits for teaching and learning in higher education, and – informed by extensive sector research – we have delivered on the desire for students and educators to explore AI through institution-aligned tools.
However, this is just the beginning, and we are excited to extend our partnership with both Microsoft and the sector to continue to deliver an unrivalled student study experience.”
Mark East, Senior Director, EMEA Regional Business Leader, Education Industry, Microsoft commented:
“We believe AI will, over time, be transformative in education. Working closely with Kortext to help deliver AI-powered study tools that leverage engagement data and relevant learning materials, and which are not impacted by referencing general internet content, is a novel and unique approach, and one we are delighted to support.
We are excited to continue to work with Kortext as they add new capabilities to these tool sets and present new opportunities and experiences to their university customers and their students.”
Kortext Premium is initially being rolled out across several of Kortext’s UK customers.
Dr David Sexton, Principal at Anglia Ruskin University London (ARUL), who are expanding their use of Kortext by launching the tools to students this semester, commented:
“We are clear that our university has to continue to invest in delivering unrivalled student experiences and supporting students so they can study, anytime, anywhere that works for them and engage with their course and materials, leveraging new technologies as they become available.
We are intrigued to learn how, when and why students use these new capabilities.”
The University of Manchester is piloting the Kortext Premium tools across a number of programmes this academic year and Olivia Walsby, Head of Teaching Collections at the University of Manchester Library, added:
“We are very interested in trialling these types of engagement tools to see how students will take up and use these capabilities and as importantly, we are going to work with individual faculty members to understand academic reaction to them too.”
Another university utilising the Kortext Premium Tools for students is Middlesex University and Matthew Lawson, Director of Library & Student Support commented:
“We have used the Kortext platform for some years now to serve learning content to students and we are now actively using the StREAM predictive learning analytics platform too, and so adding these Kortext Premium generative AI tools to the student experience seemed a natural next step and we are excited to learn how students use these capabilities in the context of their studies and their impact on progression and outcomes.”
You can find more information about Kortext Premium here.
About:
Kortext is the leading student experience and engagement expert, pioneering digitally enhanced teaching and learning in the global higher education community. Our smart study platform, Arcturus, gives institutions and their students a gateway to millions of academic eBooks and other digital resources from over 4,700 publishers.
Our student predictive analytics platform StREAM helps institutions better understand student engagement, identify a range of risks to progression and support students through targeted, personalised interventions. Engagement insight used in this way provides a powerful tool to support student retention, well-being and attainment initiatives with the aim to help every student reach their full potential.
For media enquiries, please contact:
Robin Gibson
Kortext Director of External Affairs
Email: robing@kortext.com
Phone: +44 7764412568
