Sponsored Presentations at ALT-C 2005

Blackboard International

Blackboard will present on how through the deployment of the Blackboard Academic Suite, clients are achieving a true Network Learning Environment, and with the Blackboard Roadmap how we are increasing client benefits by helping to provide: Anytime Anywhere Access; Improved Instructor Efficiency; Access to High Quality Content; Evaluation and Outcomes Management, and Student Centered Learning.

http://www.blackboard.com/

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Horizion Wimba

Interact live with an instructor logged in from outside the conference as you learn how student performance greatly improves, when faculty add a human touch to their online courses via live and vocal interaction. Learn how you can complement your online courses (and Virtual Learning Environments) by offering live, interactive classes, while simultaneously learning how adding voice creates a natural and powerful means of student-to-teacher and student-to-student interaction. Further, learn how to spread the use of your VLE throughout your campus by allowing faculty to easily convert their Word documents into webpages that can be added quickly to their VLE's.

http://www.horizonwimba.com

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JISC / HE Academy

As part of a more coherent approach to e-learning implementation JISC and the Higher Education Academy are working with HEFCE to implement the sector's e-learning strategy.

Key initiatives included in the strategy include a benchmarking exercise and Pathfinder programme which will enable individual institutions to reflect on their current context and support them in taking forward large-scale changed based on their needs.

This session will highlight how JISC and the Higher Education Academy are currently working together, how this relationship will develop and will outline some of the key joint activities to be implemented over the coming year.

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/ and http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/

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Microsoft Ltd

Learning Gateway for Higher Education - A Truly Connected Learning Environment

There's nothing new in the notion that e-Learning is playing an increasingly important role in Higher Education. The demand from students and staff for increasingly personalised services, distance learning opportunities, improved collaboration and access to learning resources anytime anywhere is ever greater. But how can Higher Education establishments ensure that they are meeting these demands with a truly connected learning environment, when stakeholders and learning influences are becoming increasingly disparate?

Learning Gateway for Higher Education is a new solution from Microsoft. Dominic Watts will present the concept from the establishment and lecturer's perspective, showing how the Learning Gateway can be used to facilitate e-learning and collaboration, removing barriers to information and communication without the need to replace existing systems.

http://www.microsoft.com/

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WebCT

e-Learning as a Strategic Lever: Maximizing the Return on Investment from e-Learning e-Learning has grown beyond peripheral usage and has become a mission-critical system to help institutions achieve their strategic goals. As institutions strive to achieve maximum return on investment, it is critical to ensure that e-learning technologies are used to leverage key challenges faced by higher education today. WebCT provides highly flexible e-learning systems that allow institutions to pick and choose precisely the functionality they need to achieve their objectives. Institutions can leverage WebCT Campus Edition for course development, delivery, and management, or the WebCT Vista - the only e-learning platform specifically built to support enterprise-class e-learning deployments. As their needs grow, WebCT Campus Edition customers have the flexibility to add on enterprise capabilities found in WebCT Vista modules. Institutions can choose the WebCT Vista Community Manager to support diverse operating groups on campus; the Learning Object Manager to effectively distribute and reuse academic content, the PowerLinks Kit to extend the e-learning environment with innovative applications, and the PowerSight Kit to leverage learning data for custom reporting and quality improvement initiatives. Join us to hear real-world examples from WebCT's customer base of how institutions today are achieving their strategic goals with WebCT.

http://www.webct.com/