Apollo Education Group Starts Nontraditional Course Catalog - Chronicle of Higher Ed

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. Here is how Balloon will work, according to Mr. Wrubel: Users will be able to browse actual job listings posted by companies such as Adobe and Amazon, see the skills those companies are requiring of candidates, and then search a database of 14,000 courses for the ones that teach those skills. http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/u-of-phoenix-parent-company-launches-nontraditional-course-search/50855