WebCT Releases Japanese Version of WebCT Campus Edition
LYNNFIELD, Mass., Dec. 6, 2002 – WebCT, the world’s leading provider of integrated e-learning systems for higher education, today released a Japanese plug-in for the WebCT Campus Edition course management system, enabling customers to provide a Japanese interface to Japanese users. The plug-in is not only valuable for higher education institutions in Japan that need a Japanese e-learning environment, but also for language labs, which can now easily offer the Japanese interface – as well as interfaces in 13 other languages – from a single instance of Campus Edition.
The plug-in features full double-byte support for Japanese characters on all Campus Edition screens. All navigation bars, buttons, menus and pick lists are Japanese. “With the new interface, we can now serve our 14,500 students in their native language,” said Associate Professor of Nagoya University Shoji Kajita. “This multilingual interface also helps more than 1,000 non-native students from abroad access our university’s WebCT-based course materials in a Japanese environment.”
WebCT showcased the new product in Tokyo Friday in a seminar titled “WebCT Campus Edition e-Learning in Practice,” sponsored by systems integrator CSK Corp. and EMIT Japan Corp., WebCT’s reseller in Japan. “There’s a strong demand for a Japanese version of WebCT to enhance educational experiences in Japanese higher education institutions, and the Japanese plug-in makes meeting this demand simple and convenient,” said EMIT Japan CTO Minoru Akiyama.
WebCT now provides unsurpassed foreign language support, offering WebCT Campus Edition plug-ins in French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Finnish, UK English, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Swedish. They are available at the WebCT Web site, www.webct.com, or from resellers. Separately from the user interface, WebCT Campus Edition supports the Unicode (UTF-8) standard for presenting all the world’s languages in a single page.
“Our language plug-ins embody our ongoing mission to blur the lines that separate the traditional classroom experience from the Internet experience,” said Carol Vallone, WebCT’s president and CEO. “Educators should be able to convert the interface into any commonly spoken language just as easily as they can modify content.”
The Japanese language plug-in for WebCT Campus Edition is available through EMIT Japan Corp. For more information, please contact Minoru Akiyama (akiyama@emit-japan.com).
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About EMIT Japan
EMIT Japan is a spin-off company from Nagoya University committed to expanding the use of WebCT e-learning technology in Japan. EMIT Japan’s vision is to advance the higher educational environment for teaching, learning and academic research by providing products, services and solutions based on information technology. In this way, EMIT Japan supports higher educational reform in Japan. For more information, please visit http://www.emit-japan.com/.
About WebCT
WebCT is the world’s leading provider of integrated e-learning systems for higher education. Thousands of colleges and universities worldwide are using WebCT’s products and services to transform the educational experience of their students. Consortia in 24 American states, four Canadian provinces and two Australian territories as well as the Consortium of Distance Education have licensed WebCT for their member institutions, making it the de facto standard in higher education. For more information, please visit
