NOV 1, 1999, M2 Communications - Interliant, a leading provider of
hosted business solutions, unveils Interliant LearningSpace hosting
services to enable academic and corporate organisations to deploy
distributed learning programmes. The company also announces that it.
has signed Sheffield Business School (SBS), a post-graduate institution
in the UK, as a customer. The first web-based courses SBS will be
offering are part time Masters of Science courses in Knowledge
Management and Consultancy aimed at post-graduate students located both
on and off campus.
Interliant's new LearningSpace hosting services are enthusiastically
approved by academic institutions for its provision of 24x7 access for
global learning participants. Distributed learning opens up the
educational system to new audiences; for instance, professional people
are able to study around their working day and single parents are able
to access tutorials from their home at times convenient to them
Interliant's hosted LearningSpace solution is also of significant
value to Corporate Human Resource and Training departments. Businesses
can tap into emerging virtual learning communities and realise the
potential of high-quality, Internet- based education and training.
Interliant's hosting service makes it possible for educational
institutions, businesses and third party training organisations to
deliver collaborative courses, technical training, and seminars,
globally over the Internet - without having to make significant
up-front investments for the technical infrastructure and specialist
staffing.
Using this service customers such as Sheffield Business School are
free to concentrate on course content and the educational needs of
students while Interliant provides the network infrastructure,
implementation and ongoing management support of Lotus' Distributed
Learning architecture, LearningSpace.
Lecturers at Sheffield Business School develop the MSc courseware
within LearningSpace and Interliant then hosts these applications.
Since LearningSpace runs on Lotus Notes and Domino, students access
their 'virtual classrooms' using a standard web browser connecting over
the Internet and SBS staff modify the courseware and participate in
course discussions using Notes clients. effield Business School's MSc in Knowledge Management and
Consultancy is the first course of its kind in Europe and has been
designed to meet the growing interest and demand for expertise in this
field. Developed in partnership with Lotus Development and IBM, and in
consultation with the Institute of Management Consultants, it involves
a mixture of theoretical, practical and applied learning, with
assessment strongly related to the work of practising professionals,
providing maximum relevance to participants and employers alike.
Disciplines studied on the course include learning systems,
organisational behaviour, communication and information technologies
and organisational strategy.
LearningSpace has three main functions. First, it defines and
justifies tasks and responsibilties for staff and students. Secondly,
it provides active support for new learning processes through archive
material, datamining for information and solitary and group study.
Finally, LearningSpace fosters student development as course
participants collaborate and learn. Interliant's technical workings are
invisible to the student ensuring that that Sheffield Business School's
brand image is what students see while taking on-line classes.
"To date the adoption of Internet-based training and education has
been slow", adds Ann Zitterkopf, European Director, Interliant, "and
this has been largely due to the high costs and technical difficulties
of deploying the systems. Interliant's remotely hosted classroom
infrastructure, plus its administrative support functions means that
Distributed Learning services are within reach of virtually everyone's
budget."
Sean Cavan, Head of Lifelong Learning, Sheffield Business School,
says, "Distributed Learning Programmes are going to play an
increasingly important role in the future of academia. As a progressive
and technical innovator, Sheffield Business School has ambitious plans
to use Distributed Learning Programmes for a wide range of courses
within the business school. Plans are already underway to establish a
full-time LearningSpace enviromnent at the University in early Summer
2000."
About Interliant, Inc.
Interliant, Inc. (www.interliant.com) is a leading provider of Web
hosting, application hosting and enhanced Internet services. These
services enable customers of all sizes to capitalise on the latest
Web-based technologies quickly and cost-effectively by relieving them
of the burdens associated with building, managing and maintaining the
infrastructure required to support mission-critical applications. By
offering a comprehensive suite of hosting and IT consulting services
including, virtual, dedicated, co-location hosting solutions, and
application and groupware hosting, Interliant is able to meet the needs
of any size business and to grow with its customers. Interliant
currently has three primary state of the art data centres located in
Atlanta, Houston and the Washington D.C. area. The company's corporate
headquarters are located in Purchase, New York.
About Sheffield Business School
Sheffield Business School is a post-graduate only institution that
has been operating on and off-campus degree courses for many years.
Over 1500 students, the majority of whom are in full-time managerial
positions, are enrolled on its MBA and MSc courses.
SBS may wish to add its own boilerplate. |
