Global Education Leader Improves Educational Outcomes with a Unified Identity Platform

Objective

With a 172-year heritage, Pearson’s mission is to move from a traditional content creator to a digital business that provides highly personalized learning. The objective was to use identity as the foundation for a single learner profile that follows a student from K-12 through higher education and into their professional life.

Challenge

Pearson’s growth through acquisition resulted in a massive absorption of disparate technologies and ways of working. This complexity made it difficult to track how learners engaged with Pearson over time. Furthermore, because Pearson handles the data of students and children, maintaining the highest standards of privacy while trying to innovate the digital journey was a critical requirement.

Solution

Pearson implemented a single identity management system (ForgeRock, now part of Ping Identity) to consolidate its fragmented infrastructure. This system creates a unique profile for every individual, allowing Pearson to append information regarding learning types and history. This unified identity follows the user across devices, ensuring the content experience is automated and tailored to the specific device and learner.

Results

The transition to a single identity platform has eliminated the complexity of previous legacy systems. Pearson can now track learner engagement in real-time to improve the quality of educational outcomes—a concept they call efficacy. Students learn faster and at a higher quality, while Pearson enjoys a more intimate, data-driven relationship with its customers. The centralized system also ensures that privacy is managed at scale across all 70 countries of operation.