Lightspan’s Academic Systems Extends Brand to Consumer Market

TOPICS Entertainment, which is ranked as the 10th largest software publisher in the nation, will repackage, bundle and distribute select titles of Academic Systems educational software into three new titles to be distributed to national retailers such as Wal-Mart, Costco, Best Buy and CompUSA. Academic Systems will receive royalties on each sale.

Jim Dredge, Academic Systems CEO, said: “We are excited to team up with TOPICS Entertainment, one of the largest software publishers in the world and has very strong relationships with major retailers including Amazon.com, Office Depot, and others. While Academic Systems is well established on college campuses across the country and continues to enjoy steady growth, we believe this retail distribution agreement will allow us to tap into a sizeable new market outside of the campus environment and significantly extend the Academic Systems brand.”

“This partnership combines Academic Systems’ high quality educational software, which has been proven in hundreds of colleges, with TOPICS Entertainment’s strong national retail relationships and distribution channels,” said Greg James, President of TOPICS Entertainment. “We are thrilled to add this very thorough, exceptional educational software to our extensive educational software offerings. We believe the CollegePro line from Academic Systems will be a very popular educational tool for students who have never before had access to this level of instruction outside the classroom.”

The three new bundles of Academic Systems titles contain interactive exercises and easy-to-understand narratives developed by teams of biologists, chemists, mathematicians, economic experts and other scholars.

The new bundled titles include:

• CollegePro Mathematics — A 4 CD set containing the subjects most problematic for students: college algebra, pre-calculus, calculus and statistics.
  
  
• CollegePro Science: A 5 CD set including beginning microbiology, genetics, general chemistry, biochemistry and molecular cell biology.
  
  
• CollegePro Business: A 5 CD set containing microeconomics, principles of macroeconomics, intermediate macroeconomics, business statistics and operations management.