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Bob Little Press & PR
23 Sherwood Avenue
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AL4 9QJ
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12th May 2009

IMS Global Learning Consortium announces sponsors for development of the Digital Learning Connection

Digital learning web catalogue will enable easier access to publisher content and learning applications based on open standards.

The IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS GLC) has announced, at its annual Learning Impact conference, that several of its member organisations have committed to funding the development of a shared web catalogue of learning resources.

The catalogue web tool will enable education institutions and school districts to find and connect to standards-based content and learning applications through their enterprise course management system or portal. The freely available, web-accessible catalogue will enable faculty, teachers and students to find a wide variety of standards-based digital learning materials and applications, such as ancillary textbook assets, e-Books, study aids, and homework applications.

The Digital Learning Connection (DLC) is a new collaboration, announced last November, in which digital learning application and content providers are working together to enable access and installation of a wide variety of products and services using a common set of standards-based protocols and formats.

This new program is designed to make it easier for faculty, professors, teachers and IT staff to incorporate digital learning applications and content into course websites. Institutions and school districts in the US could begin piloting the approach as early as this coming autumn.

The committed sponsors of the project, providing financial and technical resources are Pearson Education, Cengage Learning, ANGEL Learning, Desire2Learn and Follett Corporation.

The catalogue web tool will be developed and supported as a web service by Giunti Labs based on the HarvestRoad Hive Digital Repository. The approach encompasses a variety of open standards for digital learning content and applications - including IMS Common Cartridge and Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI), and open application programming interfaces that allow any compliant learning system or portal to interact with the catalogue.

"Follett has long served a critical role in the course materials distribution chain," said Gary Shapiro, SVP, Intellectual Property, Follett Higher Education Group.

"The DLC is an innovative effort to streamline that process. We believe we will add value to the initial design of the catalogue tool and that Follett’s own digital strategy will benefit from our active participation."

"We are pleased to be working with the IMS Global Learning Consortium and industry colleagues on the DLC catalogue initiative," said Bill Rieders, Executive Vice President of Global New Media, Cengage Learning. "Cengage Learning is committed to offering educational materials in a variety of formats and the DLC will help to make our digital learning applications and content more readily accessible to instructors, students and institutions."

"Penn State is pleased to be working with the IMS Global Learning Consortium to pilot the DLC Program," said John Harwood, Senior Director, Teaching and Learning with Technology, Penn State. "The program will increase the incorporation of digital learning into our high enrollment courses by providing ease of use benefits to faculty, while simultaneously improving the technical support of digital content and applications from a variety of providers."

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About Learning Impact 2009

Learning Impact 2009 is IMS Global Learning Consortium's annual conference and brings together the world's leading creators, vendors, users, and buyers of learning technology to participate in programme tracks focused on the latest innovations in learning systems, digital learning content, the learning enterprise, and open technologies. Presenters answer a key challenge question designed to inform the attendees on the state of innovation and best practices.

About IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS GLC)

IMS Global Learning is a nonprofit member organisation that strives to enable the growth and impact of learning technology in higher education, K-12, and corporate education worldwide. IMS GLC members are leading corporations, higher education institutions, school districts and government organizations who are enabling the future of education by developing interoperability and adoption practice standards for educational and learning technology. IMS GLC sponsors Learning Impact: a global program and conference that recognises the impact of learning and educational technology on access, affordability, and quality - the world’s most significant educational challenges. For more information, visit www.imsglobal.org and for a list of our Contributing Member organizations worldwide see http://www.imsglobal..org/members.html

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