New Mexico State University Enhances Distance Education Program with Real-time eLearning Software from Centra
“We identified an enormous opportunity to leverage the power of Centra to enhance and extend the quality of Internet-based distance education programs across our state and beyond,” said Brian Ormand, assistant director, ICT, of New Mexico State University. “The ease-of-use, reliability, and interactivity of the virtual classroom experience made Centra the obvious technology choice. As the market leader, Centra also provides superior customer support, which was critical for us in selecting a vendor we can work with over time.”
Since Centra was implemented in March 2002, NMSU has re-designed several of its distance education programs. The Cooperative Extension Service (CES) group is using Centra to deliver live, online courses to extension offices statewide, enabling NMSU to create content-rich, highly interactive, virtual classroom courses that are also available for playback using Centra’s recording features. Examples of these courses include Employee Resources, Drought Management, and the “Chile Pepper Task Force.”
In addition, the university’s Regional Educational Technology Assistance
(RETA) program has transformed its Professional Development workshops for New Mexico K-12 teachers using a blended curriculum of Centra-powered online courses and physical meetings. “Last year, the workshops were conducted face-to-face,” said Dr. Carmen Gonzales, RETA project director. “With Centra, we will be able to reach many more teachers than previously possible. Now they can take advantage of live, interactive courses designed to advance their professional careers without sacrificing the quality of education. This significantly expands the possibilities for what we can offer the state’s K-12 teacher population.”
Centra-powered eLearning is quickly spreading to other departments as well, as faculty and administrators find useful ways to apply the technology to both learning and general university communication needs. In response, NMSU’s technology department is exploring ways to use Centra with other communication technologies in a blended approach to meet the diverse needs of faculty, administrative, training, and marketing program personnel campus-wide.
Scalable Software Solution for Enterprise Collaboration
Used by more than 950 companies, government agencies, and universities worldwide, Centra’s scalable application suite provides workflow modules for sales, marketing, and training that enable more efficient and cost-effective business communication over the Web. CentraOne(tm) brings together voice, video, data, and graphics in easy-to-use interfaces for Web conferencing, meetings, and virtual classrooms that can be deployed on-site or accessed through a secure global service network. Centra integrates with existing infrastructure to help organizations align enterprise IT strategies with key business processes to enhance productivity, lower costs, and drive revenue. Centra’s solutions are available in 13 language editions and in 29 countries worldwide.
“New Mexico State University joins a growing list of innovative higher education customers who understand the potential of real-time Web collaboration, and are quickly adapting Centra-powered eLearning to expand their student base to a global community and create new opportunities to thrive as institutions,” said Joyce Bokuniewicz, Centra’s director of higher education solutions.
About New Mexico State University
New Mexico State University founded in 1888, is a comprehensive institution dedicated to teaching, research, and service at the graduate and undergraduate level. It has more than 23,300 students at the main campus and four branch campuses. It is the only land-grant institution that is also classified as Hispanic-serving by the federal government and ranked by the Carnegie Foundation in the top research category, Doctoral/Research-Extensive. NMSU has extension and research sites in every county of New Mexico. The university also administers WERC: A Consortium for Environmental Education and Technology Development and the state’s only NASA Space Grant program. NMSU is developing distance-education capabilities to extend its reach to all the citizens of the state. For more information, visit www.nmsu.edu.
About Centra
Leading with an undisputed track record of helping millions of users to increase revenue and improve overall business performance, Centra enables global corporations, government agencies, and universities to drive greater productivity and lower costs through the industry’s most extensible enterprise software application for real-time business communication and collaboration. Today more than 950 organizations across every industry and market sector choose Centra, including Cadbury Schweppes, Citigroup, AT&T, Procter & Gamble, McKesson, Merck, Nationwide Insurance, Sysco, and Stanford University. Centra’s products are bolstered by a vital ecosystem of strategic partners, including IBM Global Services (formerly PwC Consulting), Deloitte Consulting, EDS, Microsoft, Siebel, Cisco, and Oracle. Headquartered in Boston, Centra operates throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia. For more information, visit www.centra.com
Sharon Dratch
Centra
Tel: 781-994-1151
sdratch@centra.com
Centra Software, Inc. 430 Bedford Street, Lexington, MA 02420 * http://www.centra.com
phone 781-861-7000 * fax 781-863-7288
