Ricoh Americas Corporation of Malvern and Blackboard, Inc. of King of Prussia are partnering to streamline the movement of educational materials, tests, assignments and other content into and out of Blackboard’s market-leading teaching and learning environments.

The partnership, just announced at the EDUCAUSE 2014 conference, is the first between a major document imaging vendor and Blackboard. It includes a technology integration initiative aimed at tackling pressing challenges students, educators and institutions face today.

During EDUCAUSE Ricoh demonstrated a new ability to scan paper documents on a multifunction product and have them automatically flow to a student or faculty member’s Blackboard Learn account via Ricoh’s Integrated Cloud Environment.  The demonstration included ultra-simple printing of content.

Kathleen Vieira, vice president of business development at Blackboard, said the firm’s work with Ricoh will seamlessly extend the Blackboard learning environment to the world of hard copy capture and distribution while preserving the signature fluidity of its technology.

“The goal is a streamlined experience and, as always, a sharp focus on learning results,” Vieira said.

Renaud Rodrigue, vice president of educating marketing at Ricoh Americas, said the partnership is the result of listening to the wish lists of what students, faculty and administrators hope learning environments will offer over the next several decades.

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