WebCT And Pearson Education Canada Form Partnership

December 5, 2001

WebCT ( www.webct.com), the world’s leading provider of integrated e-learning systems for higher education, and Pearson Education Canada, Canada’s largest educational publisher, today announced a new partnership agreement. Under the terms of the agreement, Pearson Education Canada will develop new WebCT e-Packs specifically for the Canadian market. WebCT will be the exclusive distributor of Pearson Education Canada’s e-Packs.

Pearson Education Canada joins more than 20 leading educational publishers and content providers who produce WebCT-ready course materials. Pearson Education Canada will create e-Packs in academic disciplines including accounting, sociology, psychology and health statistics — all tailored to the Canadian higher education marketplace. Currently, more than 20 Pearson Education Canada e-Packs are available for use in WebCT classes, and can be previewed online in WebCT’s “Content Showcase,” at www.webct.com/content/viewpage?name=content–showcase.

The new partnership also calls for collaboration between WebCT and Pearson Education Canada to increase the quality and quantity of e-Packs for the Canadian market. The partners will work together on a variety of issues related to Pearson Education Canada’s e-Packs, including technical support and reporting and tracking of e-Pack deployment and adoptions. “We are pleased to partner with Pearson Education Canada,” said Carol A. Vallone, president and chief executive officer of WebCT. “Pearson is the top educational publisher in the Canadian market, which is important to us, because we have so many Canadian customers. Like all of our customers around the world, more and more of our Canadian institutions are scaling their e-learning systems campus-wide, and e-Packs make it quick and easy for faculty to get started teaching online – without having to create a course from scratch. We look forward to working with Pearson to continue developing high quality, robust e-Packs for the Canadian marketplace.” “WebCT is without a doubt the dominant e-learning systems provider in the Canadian higher education market,” noted Dan Lee, chief operating officer of Pearson Education Canada. “So our new partnership gives us a powerful distribution channel for the higher education marketplace. WebCT also has a strong academic heritage and continued focus on teaching and learning, so we expect our partnership to deliver rich, interactive e-learning materials for the Canadian higher education community.”

e-Packs are publisher content modules that are WebCT-ready. They combine fully customizable online course materials, such as video animations, sample syllabi, lecture notes, quiz and test banks, and glossaries, with the functionality of WebCT’s course management software. Faculty can easily incorporate an e-Pack into a WebCT online course, and start teaching online without having to create course content from scratch. WebCT currently offers more than 1,100 e-Packs from publishers in virtually every academic discipline. For more information on WebCT’s e-Packs, please visit www.webct.com/content.

About WebCT

WebCT is the world’s leading provider of integrated e-learning systems for higher education. More than 2,300 colleges and universities in almost 80 countries worldwide are using WebCT’s products and services to transform the educational experience of their students. Consortia in 19 American states, four Canadian provinces, the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, the French National Center for Distance Learning and the Japanese National Institute of Multimedia Education (NIME) have licensed WebCT for their member institutions, making it the de facto standard in higher education. More information about WebCT can be found at www.webct.com.

About Pearson Education Canada

Pearson Education Canada, a division of one of the world’s leading media companies, Pearson plc, is Canada’s largest publisher. Pearson has an established reputation for producing market-leading educational products and services as well as a comprehensive range of best-selling consumer, technical and professional titles. For more information about Pearson Education Canada, visit www.pearsoned.ca.

Contact Information

Karen Gage

WebCT

781-309-1147

Sandy Baird

Wheeler Baird Group

203-637-8614