Unizin Introduces Bart Pursel as New Chief Technology Officer

Published December 2, 2021

Unizin Introduces Bart Pursel as New Chief Technology Officer

AUSTIN, TX (December 2, 2021) – Unizin, the member consortium of leading academic and research institutions, today announced that Bart Pursel has joined the organization as Chief Technology Officer.  Pursel who most recently served as Director of Teaching & Learning with Technology Innovation at Penn State University, has been an integral member of the Unizin consortium, including serving as the chair of the organization’s first analytics committee in 2017.

Pursel has spent the past two decades at Penn State, with leadership roles in faculty engagement, emerging technology, and learning analytics initiatives. Coming from a background that includes both scholarly and institutional research, Pursel has embraced the potential of data to inform decisions related to faculty development, curriculum design, and student success.

As an active member of the Unizin consortium, Pursel has been instrumental in guiding the development and deployment of the Unizin Data Platform (UDP), the first-of-its-kind standardized data platform designed to support learning analytics at scale within and between member institutions.  In his role as Chief Technology Officer, Pursel will be responsible for the continued evolution and utilization of the UDP to further research and analytics, as well as the continued growth of Unizin’s industry-leading digital course material platforms Unizin Engage and Order Tool.

“Coming from within a university, I understand the transformative potential of, and critical need for data to transform decision making from an institutional perspective,” said Pursel. “Unizin’s collaborative consortium model gives us the unique opportunity to accelerate our impact at both ends of the data spectrum. We can make accessible relevant data for administrators, learning designers, faculty and students themselves, while simultaneously exploring the bleeding edge of learning analytics, machine learning and AI.”

“Operating on the front lines of data evolution within a prestigious university like Penn State for more than 20 years, Bart’s perspective and experience are invaluable resources for Unizin,” said Cathy O’Bryan, CEO of Unizin. “He knows our organization, he knows our members, and he understands the potential of our platforms to transform the entire data ecosystem, from digital content access and delivery to data acquisition, analytics, and application.”

ABOUT UNIZIN

Unizin provides institutions with technology solutions and partnerships that enable them to scale their use of data, analytics, digital content and learning tools to improve outcomes. Unizin is membership-based and governed by its Founding Member institutions as a nonprofit 501(c)(3). It is currently composed of 13 institutions and 900,000+ learners, making it one of the largest educational organizations in the country.

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MEDIA CONTACT

Tony Labriola

tony@thinkinsideout.com