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Giunti Labs
Abbazia dell'Annunziata, Via Portobello - Baia del Silenzio, 16039 Sestri Levante (GE), Italy

Phone: +39 0185 42123; Web www.giuntilabs.com

11th November 2008

Giunti Labs' user conference endorses open platform learning content, technologies and standards

Giunti Labs, a leading learning and mobile content management solution provider, recently welcomed some 100 delegates from around the world to its Hive DR and learn eXact LCMS Joint User Group conference, held in Sestri Levante, Italy.

Following an introduction to the event, given by Fabrizio Cardinali, Giunti Labs' CEO, Michael King, Vice President of IBM Global Education Industry, observed: "Open platform education is the engine of innovation in the 21st century - especially since, between 2010 and 2020, the USA, Europe, Japan, China and India are predicted to face a shortfall of some 32m well-educated, technically specialised professionals. Consequently, education should enable open access for all; encourage open data and business processes; promote open communities of learning and open technologies to deliver the learning."

King outlined three trends:

• Demand for ‘learning outcomes' and pressures on costs are leading to an industry which is increasingly integrated student-centric.

• Consumer information technology (IT) will drive learner expectations of technology-delivered learning.

• Open technologies and standards will continue to drive enterprise IT innovation.

Other speakers included Mike Morris, Cisco's Manager of Sales Business Development; Patricia Santos, eLearning Manager of Cegos, and Judy Brown, Mobile Learning Researcher at the Institute for Simulation and Training, the University of Central Florida and the founder of the Academic ADL SCORM Co-Lab.

Cardinali commented that Giunti Labs is meeting the learning challenges of these early years of the 21st century by building SOA architectures, partnerships and solutions for personalised learning. He explained: "From 1996 to 2000, we had ‘e-learning 1.0' with traditional pedagogy, contents and models.

"Then, from 2000 to 2004, users became dissatisfied with this first generation e-learning and we saw the growth of self-generated e-learning content with little emphasis on pedagogy or instructional design but presented via ‘e-learning 2.0' technology.

"Now, we are witnessing the blending of formal and informal learning content, being delivered on mobile and open platforms. This is ‘e-learning 3.0' and is helping to develop personal learning communities," he said.

Consequently, learning systems need content that works in terms of both formal and informal learning, Cardinali continued. He added: "Innovation is the key if educators are to meet society's expectations."

At the conference - sponsored by Giunti Labs' partners Promethean, Cegos, Plateau, Cisco and IBM - users of the world's leading digital content repository and marketplace solution, HarvestRoad Hive™, and of the leading online and mobile learning content management system, learn eXact™, shared their knowledge and experience of the use of rich media, mobile and virtual learning content production, management and rendering toolkits to provide open and interoperable digital repository services.

End

About Giunti Labs

Giunti is unique in the international publishing industry.

In 1497, Giunti publishers and typographers in Florence, together with others in Venice, began modern book manufacturing. Over the years Giunti has built a 'historical catalogue' of huge dimensions, through a gradual process of 'fusion' of different publishers, but also through the creation of new brands, including Giunti Labs. Giunti Editore now includes 20 companies in the publishing sector.

Giunti Labs, which has its global headquarters in Italy and offices in London (UK), Frankfurt (Germany), Lund (Sweden) and in Boston (US), provides a wide range of services, in response to any content, learning and knowledge management need, covering:

• Content production

• Research and development

• Technological solutions for content, learning & knowledge management

• Architectural and technological solutions for mobile & wireless

• Training and consulting

Giunti Labs provides the learn eXact® suite, Europe's leading e-learning and mobile learning content management technology. This suite is interoperable with all major vendor-driven and open source LMS and VLE solutions in the market including Plateau, Oracle, SumTotal, Saba, WebCT, Blackboard, Sakai, LRN and Moodle.

Moreover, Giunti Labs does not just adhere to the international standards relating to the LMS/LCMS world, it is one of the organisations that helps to determine and drive these standards: co-writing and developing them. Giunti Labs plays a key role in most of the international institutions for the definition of eLearning specifications (IEEE LTSC, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC36, CEN/ISSS WSLT, AICC, IMS, ADL-SCORM and OKI).

Further information from:

Minna Leikas, Giunti Labs, +39 3489 399127
Bob Little, Bob Little Press & PR, +44 (0)1727 860405