IBM Mindspan Solutions and VIP Announce IBM Software Services for Enhanced Distributed Learning Environment for e-Learning Initiatives
IBM Mindspan Solutions™, the worldwide leader in e-learning solutions, and VIP Ltd., Inc. (VIP), an IBM Premier Business Partner, today announced the addition of IBM Software Services for the enhanced distributed learning environment (EDLE) to the IBM Mindspan Solutions portfolio of e-learning offerings. Jointly developed by VIP and IBM Global Services (IGS), EDLE provides a ready-to-operate package of hardware, software and services to support training initiatives throughout many industries, from higher education to healthcare, without the need for lengthy installation and implementation stages.
As enterprises continue to grow and expand geographically, many organizations are realizing that the only way to continue educating employees is through e-learning on demand. By providing a scalable solution that can be seamlessly integrated with existing systems and is designed to be implemented in less than 30 days, the EDLE solution helps corporations enforce corporate standards, re-train and re-certify employees, and standardize sales, marketing and support programs with ease.
“E-learning solutions such as EDLE, when coupled with custom content development and integration services, allow enterprises to quickly deliver mission-critical just-in-time learning to the learner’s workstation,” said Andrew Sadler, Director, IBM Mindspan Solutions. “This allows us to solve learning-intensive business problems without the wasted time and expense often associated with traditional training.”
By working with VIP, IBM has leveraged the powerful capabilities of the IBM Content Manager, IBM Lotus LearningSpace® as well as other best-of-breed products and services in the EDLE solution, creating one easy-to-deploy e-learning solution. The integration of top-of-the-line products in EDLE helps customers easily manage rich digital media elements such as documents, images, audio and video, and incorporate these elements into course materials to be administered, presented and tracked via the expansive e-learning platform, Lotus LearningSpace.
In collaboration with VIP, IBM Mindspan Solutions now offers certain e-learning solutions in the JavaTM environment, mirroring the support that other divisions of IBM are showing for the platform-independent programming language. With EDLE, students can view rich media course content supported through a Java browser, while the actual content remains in the IBM content management repositories. Therefore, course administrators typically only need to change content once and all courses including that content will be automatically updated, drastically simplifying the scaling of course curricula to meet ever-changing training needs.
“VIP has over 10 years invested in working with IBM and content management. It put us in a unique position to help tightly integrate the IBM Content Manager into e-learning. Even before the current events, many organizations have been trying to improve the effectiveness and reduce the cost of workforce education,” said Mike Cozakas, CEO of VIP Ltd., Inc. “The production-ready inclusion of rich media and content management enriches the learning experience and makes distributed learning possible.”
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