eCollege Becomes the First CMS to Offer Fully Integrated XanEdu CoursePacks

August 28, 2002

eCollege(SM) [Nasdaq: ECLG], the leading provider of technology and services for online higher education programs, today announced a partnership with XanEdu, a division of ProQuest Information & Learning, and host to one of the world’s largest sources of premium content geared expressly for students, faculty and higher education institutions. Through the partnership, XanEdu™ CoursePacks can be seamlessly integrated into the eCollege AU+(SM) teaching platform.

“This partnership underscores our continued commitment to provide faculty and students with easy access to all Web-available content,” said Oakleigh Thorne, chairman and CEO of eCollege. “Unlike other course management system providers, we have fully integrated XanEdu’s CoursePacks into our platform so that faculty and students can easily access these materials from within their course, without having to log on to multiple sites.”

Faculty members can create and edit their own CoursePacks in the XanEdu system, and then add the CoursePack link to any unit inside their eCollege AU+ course shell. This simple integration enables educators to enhance their courses with high quality content, while reducing research and course development efforts, ultimately leaving more time for teaching and interacting with students. For students, this integration simplifies access to their professor’s custom CoursePack via their single integrated course login.

“Institutions across the country rely on eCollege to deliver their full online programs – programs that serve faculty and students who depend on the anytime, anywhere convenience of eLearning. For this group, it’s imperative we provide the opportunity to create, purchase and access high quality content in a convenient manner,” said Lew Gossage, senior vice president and general manager of XanEdu. “We are very excited about this partnership as it will greatly increase the availability of our rich content to academia.”

The XanEdu resources provide users seamless access to more than 5.5 billion pages of articles, case studies and other content from thousands of publishers that continues to grow with new titles. For more information on integrating a XanEdu CoursePack into an eCollege online course, please call 1-888-376-9496.

About XanEdu

XanEdu is a division of ProQuest Information & Learning. It publishes online and offline course materials for the higher education market, helping faculty teach smarter and students learn smarter. XanEdu also has amassed one of the largest commercial and scholarly archives of journals, periodicals, newspapers, books, dissertations, primary literature works, and academic collections, through its parent, ProQuest Information & Learning. For more information about XanEdu, visit www.xanedu.com

About eCollege

eCollege [Nasdaq: ECLG] is the leading eLearning technology and services provider to educational markets. eCollege designs, builds and supports high quality online degree, certificate/diploma and professional development programs for colleges, universities, school districts and state departments of education. eCollege’s clients include such institutions as National University; University of Massachusetts Amherst; University of Colorado; Drexel University; DeVry University, Inc.; New England College of Finance; and the Kentucky Virtual High School. The company was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Denver. For more information, visit www.eCollege.com.

This news release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the securities laws. These statements are based on management’s current expectations and are subject to a number of uncertainties and risks. Actual results may differ materially. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from estimates or projections contained in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, our ability to successfully implement partnerships with our vendors; the possibility of our network infrastructure and computer systems failing; substantial and increasing competition in the online education market; future technological advances by our competitors; the vulnerability of our network to security risks; and such other factors as are discussed in our most recent Form 10-K Annual Report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), which you are encouraged to review in connection with this release. We believe that these forward-looking statements are reasonable, however, you should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which are based on current expectations and speak only as of the date of this release. We are not obligated to publicly release any revisions to forward-looking statements to reflect events after the date of this release.

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