eCollege(SM)’s CourseFlex Navigation(SM) Gives Faculty Greater Customization Opportunities
eCollege(SM) (Nasdaq: ECLG), the leading provider of technology and services for online education programs, today announced that as part of its eCollege AU(SM) product release on December 18th, its CourseFlex Navigation(SM) feature set will offer greater customization and course conversion opportunities.
eCollege AU is an extension of the company’s popular teaching platform. Created entirely from faculty direction, eCollege AU is all “About You” — it’s about customized options, about greater convenience, and about unparalleled access for everyone. CourseFlex Navigation plays a key role within eCollege AU by allowing for more options in organizing courses and more convenience in viewing content.
“At eCollege, we want to give institutions options in how they deliver their eLearning programs to best help them meet their completion and retention goals,” said Oakleigh Thorne, chairman and CEO of eCollege. “Our new CourseFlex Navigation can emulate the course structure of other platforms, enabling relatively easy transfer of courses to our platform. This becomes important in standardizing eLearning across a campus with a truly reliable and scalable solution, while allowing the structure of each individual course to remain consistent with the faculty member’s comfort and teaching style.”
Options – Unit to Feature Course Organization
eCollege AU has the flexibility to be organized by sequential unit (e.g. week 1,2,3, etc.); feature (e.g. threaded discussions, readings, exams, etc.); or a combination of both. eCollege has found the unit-based structure, which is organized the way a traditional course flows, works well for full distance courses. However, faculty members have also become comfortable structuring their online courses by feature. CourseFlex Navigation gives faculty the option of organizing their course the way they want. Ultimately, the best instructional design approaches may be a combination of both, leveraging units for basic course instruction and features for appendices.
Convenience – Collapse or Expand Viewable Content Space
eCollege will also become the only vendor to offer a platform where the user can collapse or expand the navigation bar to increase screen space for actual course content. Additionally, unlike other platforms that only allow the user to open one area of the course at a time, CourseFlex Navigation makes it convenient for users to keep multiple areas of a course open simultaneously, clearly labeling which ones are open.
“It is very refreshing to come across an eLearning vendor that designs its products around the suggestions that you as an educator make,” said Paddy O’Hara Mays, director of Continuing and Distance Education, Lock Haven University. “We are very excited about the new CourseFlex Navigation feature. We believe it will accommodate a wider variety of teaching styles, enabling our faculty to build courses that truly reflect their individual approaches.”
CourseFlex Navigation is the second feature announcement as part of eCollege AU. The company announced last week that its software platform and service offerings had been enhanced to provide industry-leading levels of accessibility for blind, deaf and mobility-impaired faculty and students.
“As part of our new eCollege AU product launch, we will be announcing a series of product enhancements that will give customers unparalleled options when choosing an eLearning vendor,” said Thorne. “We continue to provide the highest quality products and service in the eLearning industry, enabling institutions to build online learning programs that meet their enrollment, quality and financial goals.”
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; Seton Hall University; University of Colorado; DeVry University, Inc.; Kentucky Virtual High School; and Microsoft Faculty Center. The company was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Denver. For more information, visit www.eCollege.com.
This release may contain forward-looking statements, as well as historical information. Forward-looking statements may involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the company’s actual results and performance to differ materially from the company’s outlook. Such forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this release. The company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements found herein to reflect any changes in company expectations or results or any change in events.
eCollege, eCollege AU and CourseFlex Navigation are service marks of eCollege. All other trademarks and service marks or registered trademarks or service marks are the property of their respective owners.
