Calgary, AB (September 7, 2021) In the Fall of 2019 Lyryx Learning celebrated their impact on 100,000 students across the US and Canada since starting as a sustainable OER publisher in 2013. In the two short (yet very long) years since then, another 50,000 students have registered in Lyryx with Open Texts courses. Additional efforts made to extend aid in the wake of Covid-19 led to the social enterprise expanding their reach to many other parts of the globe.   

*Lyryx use around the globe.

Lyryx has been committed to improving access and affordability in higher education since its inception in the year 2000, and since 2013, they have bolstered these efforts by publishing and updating a library of eleven open-source textbooks and supplements that are available to students and instructors at no cost. These resources are enhanced by Lyryx’s affordable online assessment platform with interactive activities in numerous electronic formats to encourage students in reading and learning course material. 

Claude Laflamme, President and Founder, says “The institutions and instructors we work with are our partners in delivering learning that is accessible and affordable. The editorial and development work we do with them contributes not only to the partnership, but to the OER community as a whole.” 

Additionally, through a continued allyship, Lyryx’s affordable online homework/ exams platform has been paired with no less than seven OpenStax textbooks in the Mathematics/ Statistics and Business subject areas.  

These efforts, along with Free Lab, an initiative that allows students to access their online homework at no cost in campus computer labs, have contributed to an impressive $15 million in student savings as compared to traditional textbooks in the last eight years.  

Lyryx is proud to be making such an impact, especially as a small team operating within an industry of giants.  

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Calgary, AB (9/8/2021) – In the spirit of their tagline, open educational resource publisher/ edtech provider, Lyryx Learning, has launched their next innovation toward “advancing learning.” The company has always prioritized formative assessment as the pedagogical backbone of their online assessment technology, and in recognizing the continued need to improve access to educational resources, Lyryx has brought the ability to practice concepts and track progress to a device that’s usually never more than arm’s length away – cell phones. Not only does this allow students to learn “on the go”, but it also offers a format of learning that easily integrates with their everyday lives. 

The Lyryx Mobile App was designed and developed to increase student engagement with Linear Algebra content by turning reading into an engaging activity. Within the app, the course content is “chunked” into small blocks, each with an interactive question, creating a “dialogue” with the learning material. This, along with progress analytics built into the app, creates an almost game-like experience where problems solved fosters a sense of accomplishment and gratification, all in a low-risk environment. 

After conducting a pilot with university students in Winter 2021, the results suggest that the Lyryx mobile app is an effective tool for reading, interacting, and learning Linear Algebra. 

Details of the pilot:  

Course: Linear Methods I 

Students: 700 

Participation grade: 3% 

Result: An encouraging and positive correlation coefficient of .54* was recorded comparing the performance in the Lyryx Mobile App and the final course grades. 

*proportion of successfully completed questions within the mobile app 

The app is now available for use with both Linear Algebra with Applications and A First Course in Linear Algebra. Those interested in learning how to use the app in their courses can contact Lyryx by sending an email to info@lyryx.com or by filling out their contact form. 

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Lyryx finds yet another way to make higher education accessible to students with the Janet Bailey Memorial Fund.

Following the unprecedented circumstances of 2020, people across the globe have fallen on hard times. This includes the realm of higher education, where many students are also facing extensive financial hardship. While many struggled prior to the pandemic, the closure of campuses and a general shortage of viable work opportunities saw existing problems of affordability and access in higher education exacerbated.

In acknowledgement of this difficult reality, and out of gratitude for the continued support of our adopters, Lyryx has been working alongside many institutions and instructors throughout the pandemic to provide free access to our online homework/ exam platform to students facing real financial need. For Winter 2021, thanks to a generous contribution made by Dr James Bailey of the College of the Rockies, Lyryx has been able to further fuel this effort by awarding free access to even more students in need.

When asked about the initiative, Managing Director, Tamsyn Murnaghan said, “Reading through the student submissions and realizing the extent of financial pressure caused by the events of the last year was a sobering experience. So many people are in need, and we’re grateful for the opportunity to help out in every little way we can.”

The Janet Bailey Memorial Fund

Dr Bailey established this fund in honour of his mother, Janet Bailey, about whom he says:

“She was born and raised on a farm. During World War II she studied and became a nurse. She always recognized the value of an education and encouraged her children to study hard and take their education as far as they could.”

Dr Bailey intended for this fund to help students make the most of their opportunities, to study hard, and to take their learning as far as possible.

“My mother would have approved of Lyryx Learning’s commitment to providing open-source textbooks, helping to keep a high education affordable to everyone.” Dr Bailey concluded.

Lyryx thanks Dr Bailey for his continued contribution and commitment to higher education.

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• Calgary, AB (April 4, 2020)

Amid the unprecedented uncertainty and disruption resulting from the global Coronavirus pandemic, Lyryx has provided free access to our online homework for over 750 post-secondary students studying in quarantine throughout Canada and the United States.

Lyryx prides itself on finding innovative ways to make course materials accessible to students, including offering a free option to students who opt to do their homework assignments in campus computer labs (Free Lab), and only charging a small fee to those who prefer the convenience of working elsewhere.

Given the closing of college and university campuses across North America and the ensuing increased need for accessibility during these unsettling times, all students enrolled in Lyryx courses with Free Lab have been granted free and uninhibited access until the end of the current semester. In addition, Lyryx worked with numerous institutions transitioning to online delivery to provide instructors with online homework and exams and students with free access to the platform.

Here is a sample of what instructors had to say about Lyryx:

On my behalf and that of my students, I would like to say thank you to the whole Lyryx team for being thoughtful and supportive during this difficult time. This decision demonstrates your strong commitment to education which will not remain unnoticed.

• Agnieszka Miedlar, University of Kansas

I cannot thank Lyryx enough for the excellent product it continues to be!! Covid-19 has not only created unprecedented times and actions in post-secondary education but around the world. Lyryx allowed me to move to high quality, “alternate online” exams/assessments with strong rigor when forced to move to alternate online delivery of my course in March of 2020. The product has been a life saver and the envy of many of my colleagues. The staff at Lyryx have gone above and beyond their usual excellent service!!

• James Reimer, Lethbridge College

Lyryx is committed to providing high quality open texts, affordable online homework, and excellent service and support and we hope to assist the higher education community as much as possible during the coming months.

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The Lyryx OER Champion campaign was created to celebrate the efforts and successes of instructors working to adopt, adapt and develop open educational resources (OERs) in conjunction with Lyryx. Running from February to March of 2020, OER Champion stories were selected and showcased on the Lyryx website and social media. Upon selecting three OER Champions, Lyryx authors and content experts followed specific guidelines in collectively voting for the Lyryx OER Champion of the Year. Below is Anna’s story:

“…I’m an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the University of Houston (UH). UH is a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI), and it is one of only three Tier One public research universities in the nation with this designation and the only such institution in Texas. Moreover, the UH serves working middle-class students, most of which are working long hours to put themselves through college.

I strongly believe that education is a right not a privilege, and should be free and only limited by students’ interests and abilities, not their finances. To this end, I only use OER in my classes. Last semester I was teaching Advanced Linear Algebra. A textbook from Lyryx was the most comprehensive and clear, and had the best choices for the topics I found. When I found out that it also came with so many perks, such as online homework, practice problems, and teaching slides, I immediately started advertising it on my department. The first question I was asked every time was “How much is it?” It took a while to convince everyone that it was free for the students, free for the instructor, and free for the university. In fact, it’s not only free for the department, it reduces our costs by not having a grader assigned to the class, since the system grades all homework assignments automatically. The next question that always came was “Then why aren’t we using it already?”

I don’t know about the others, but I definitely will be using Lyryx in the future. I have even requested to teach linear algebra again next year, so I can use the system.”

Follow up with Lyryx in January 2021 when the OER Champion campaign will celebrate another round of OER advocates. See all Lyryx OER Champion stories here.

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BCcampus is recognized as a leader of Open Educational Resource development in Canada and worldwide. The BC Open Textbook Collection now holds over 180 open textbooks in 8 main and 36 secondary subject areas. By providing the public with approved open material, BCcampus enables access to freely available content, information and data that is an essential component of an improved learning environment – for students as well as instructors.

Lyryx is honoured to provide their open textbooks alongside this growing collection of high quality resources. Lyryx will continue to support open and affordable learning material in order to provide support of instructors with OER.

“We hope that by aligning with like-minded organizations like BCcampus, Lyryx with Open Texts will be even more accessible for instructors to use,” says Claude Laflamme, Founder and CEO of Lyryx Learning. “Advocates of OER are working towards a shared goal of making education open and accessible to all. We feel that we are one step closer to that mission with sharing our open texts on the BCcampus repositories.”

Lyryx contributes several open textbooks to the BCcampus collection, all openly licensed with Creative Commons licenses. These texts include the subject areas of mathematics, business, and economics. The business and economics texts were written by Canadian authors giving a unique and important perspective on their respective disciplines.

To find out more about Lyryx Learning, visit: https://corpsite.testing.lyryx.com

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In the webinar we will be discussing the challenges that Instructors face when adopting an open text and addressing how to overcome those challenges with ease.

Presenter: Tamsyn Murnaghan – Director of Client Services

Join the Webinar:
https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/587817373
Access Code: 587-817-373
You can also dial in using your phone.
Canada: +1 (647) 497-9373 or
United States: +1 (669) 224-3318

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In response to this recognition Lyryx wants to bring further awareness to the importance of open educational resources (OER) for the future of education. The OER movement will continue to break barriers with innovation and progressive advancement.

“It is an honor to be recognized by the Open Education Consortium” says Claude Laflamme, Founder and CEO of Lyryx Learning. “It means a lot to know that a global platform like OEC notices our contribution to advancing learning through open resources and affordable assessments. Thank you OEC.”

The Open Education Consortium is a global network of educational institutions, individuals and organizations that support an approach to education based on openness, including collaboration, innovation and collective development and use of open educational materials. The OE Awards for Excellence have been recognizing innovation in open education resources since 2011.

To find out more about Lyryx Learning, visit: http://lyryx.com/

OEC Announcement: http://www.oeconsortium.org/projects/open-education-awards-for-excellence/honorable-mentions/

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In contrast, Lyryx Learning, a Canadian-owned open educational resources company, saw an increase of 20% in Q4, 2016. Both companies provide course material for higher education. The difference is that Pearson publishes textbooks while Lyryx provides Open Texts and adaptable online educational resources.

“The education world is changing rapidly. Students can’t afford the hyper inflated costs of textbooks,” says Claude Laflamme, Founder and CEO of Lyryx Learning. “Traditional publishers aren’t reacting fast enough to a changing market where everything is online and accessible to all.”

Instructors are also adapting to the students need for change. Deborah Wilson, an instructor at Selkirk College says, “School fees keep mounting for students and we want to help out any way we can.”

Gone are the days of lugging around five expensive textbooks each semester that are never to be used again or sold at a fraction of the original value. Lyryx is innovating and considers students’ best interests when developing products.

These are some of the reasons open educational resources (OER) support students learning:

• Cost savings
• Convenience of learning anywhere
• Texts are open and adaptable
• Universal access

To find out more about Lyryx Learning, visit: http://lyryx.com

Bloomberg Article Referenced: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-18/pearson-withdraws-2018-profit-goal-will-exit-penguin-venture

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