(left to right)
Solutience President Richard Fowler and Dr. Bill Junkin
Erskine College Signs Contract With Company
To Market BQ Software
Erskine College has signed a contract with a Greenville-based company to market the BQ software developed by Erskine physics professor Dr. Bill Junkin.
Dr. Jay West, vice president of institutional relations at Erskine, said the two-year contract is with Solutience, an information technology consulting company based in Greenville.
West said the original contract was with Softlab North America, a BMW subsidiary, but Softlab President and Chief Executive Officer Richard Fowler completed a management buyout in October and the company was renamed Solutience.
BQ allows instructors to poll students on course content and receive real-time responses on computers, PDAs (personal data assistant) and wireless phones.
The wireless phones work like a combination computer-telephone-PDA.
Students can use these devices in class to respond electronically and anonymously to questions by touchpad. They will also be able to access the Internet with a wireless connection, and they will be able to obtain online course materials anywhere, anytime.
The backbone of Junkin’s software is the premise that when students feel the freedom to express their answers electronically, the professor will have a better understanding of what each student is thinking.
The technology has been used by the Air Force Academy and other schools and the contract with Solutience will allow the product to be marketed globally to businesses.
Junkin said he developed BQ specifically for education, and for several years has shared the software without cost to other educational institutions, non-profit and non-commercial groups.
“I felt all along it would be very useful for business and industry,” Junkin said. “One obvious use is in the education and training of employees. That has become extremely important for business and industry.”
He said he has no expertise in marketing a product or being involved in business negotiations.
“I have no desire to move in that direction,” Junkin said. “I enjoy what I’m doing.”
He recognized, however, that to continue developing BQ and other education innovations, “it is necessary for us to have a source of funding.”
Erskine will receive 50 percent of all royalties, West said.
That funding will also allow the college to continue making BQ available to other educational institutions, non-profit and non-commercial ventures at no cost, Junkin said.
A number of colleges and universities are already using BQ to some extent, as are high schools, an elementary school and several other organizations.
West said there are several ways the venture will benefit Erskine College. “It’ll provide us exposure in the global marketplace, it’ll be a stream of revenue and open the door for future contracts of the same nature,” he said.
Junkin said he is “very delighted” that Solutience is going to market the software.
“That company has the expertise and the desire to market the software, be involved in business negotiations and they already have a lot of contacts in the business world,” he said.
West said the marketing contract “gives us an opportunity for some name recognition. It could provide an increase in prospective student interest and a stream of revenue we’ve not yet realized.”
The idea of marketing the software was about a year in the making, West said, as Junkin and others began to realize that the technology could be of use to the business community.
“We knew we had something special—we knew it would help people interested in a more advanced form of corporate training,” he said. “It seemed like a natural fit (for businesses).”
Junkin said he had a vision of the impact BQ could make in educational circles.
“I developed it so the technology would be there to implement some of the ideas and pedagogies already being developed in physics education research,” he said. “I did have a vision of how it would impact the way people learn.”
Employee training is where BQ will probably make its largest impact in the corporate world, Junkin said, but could prove valuable in other ways.
“The BQ software provides quick, easy communication and dissemination of information,” he said. “It may have a number of uses that wouldn’t apply to education.”
