VitalSource Technologies, the new owners of CourseSmart, will soon deactivate the CourseSmart tools within Millersville's D2L system. This will affect:

  • the CourseSmart Bookshelf widget
  • any QuickLinks you created within your D2L courses to the CourseSmart Bookshelf
  • any QuickLinks you created within your D2L courses to CourseSmart etextbooks or resources

Following the shutdown, the link in the CourseSmart Bookshelf widget, and any CourseSmart Bookshelf or etextbook links you created, will stop working. Attempting to use the links will lead you, and your students, to either an error page or an informational page on VitalSource Technologies' web site.

If you, or your students, previously purchased a subscription to a CourseSmart eTextbook or other digital resource, access to that item will remain available through the CourseSmart website, www.coursesmart.com, even after the CourseSmart tools in D2L stop working. By going to the CourseSmart website directly, you will be able to access your purchased item through the remainder of the license period.

If you currently use, or had intended to begin using, one or more CourseSmart eTextbooks or digital resources in your teaching, please contact the Millersville University IT Help Desk. If faculty members express interest, Millersville University will investigate replacing within D2L CourseSmart's soon to be defunct tools with new eTextbook tools from VitalSource Technologies.

This purchase, and shutdown, of CourseSmart by VitalSource Technologies only affects the CourseSmart tools within D2L. The remainder of the D2L system, as well as integrated eTextbook and digital resource tools by other, non-CourseSmart companies, will continue to function normally.

The CourseSmart deactivation notice from VitalSource Technologies:

As you may be aware, this past March, Vital Source Technologies, Inc. announced the acquisition of CourseSmart, a leading provider of digital textbooks in higher education. The combination of Vital Source and CourseSmart will create the world's broadest, most powerful, digital content channel providing customers with the best-in-breed technology, scalability, industry leading analytics, and the broadest digital content catalog in higher education.

Since the acquisition, we have been working diligently to create a migration strategy for each of CourseSmart's institutional customers to the VitalSource platform. Through our due diligence we have reviewed the activity of your integration and identified that it is no longer active.

With that information in hand, we have determined it best to decommission your institution's integration in CourseSmart's Service Hub; this means that faculty will no longer have instant access to digital course materials for discovery, evaluation, and adoption, and students will no longer be able to access CourseSmart eTextbooks via an LMS integration. However, if faculty or students still have an active subscription to a title, that access will continue through direct log-in to coursesmart.com.

If you want to continue offering your faculty and students the benefits of an integration through your LMS, we would love the opportunity to discuss transitioning your integration from CourseSmart to the VitalSource platform. If you are interested, please let us know, and we will put you in touch with a VitalSource Account Executive.