McGraw-Hill Higher Education and ETUDES Form Alliance to Expand Delivery of Online Learning Solutions

McGraw-Hill Higher Education, a leading provider of electronic and print learning materials, and the ETUDES Consortium at Foothill College, a community of educational institutions that lead the development of open source web-based tools for teaching and learning, have announced a strategic alliance intended to further the development and distribution of content for use by instructors and students.

Working closely with ETUDES, McGraw-Hill Higher Education's instructional designers will create authoritative, thoroughly reviewed content and complete online courses, which can easily be deployed and accessed by instructors and students through ETUDES-NG open source software. ETUDES-NG is built upon the Sakai platform, a higher education project for creating open source tools for use in teaching, learning, collaboration, and research. Open source is a means of developing and distributing software that ensures it is available for use, modification and redistribution by anyone, generally at little or no cost.

Adoptions of McGraw-Hill Higher Education's online courses developed through this alliance will fund additional research and development within the ETUDES Consortium community. And McGraw-Hill Higher Education's Learning Solutions team will gain insights into how instructors and students use Sakai- supported online course content in both distance and hybrid (online and traditional) learning environments.

"We look forward to collaborating with ETUDES as we expand and enhance access to educational content delivered through the Sakai platform. Through these efforts, we will be able provide even more institutions with the teaching and learning solutions that drive student achievement," said Jeff Schultz, vice president of McGraw-Hill Higher Education's Learning Solutions. "This alliance demonstrates the commitment shared by ETUDES and McGraw-Hill to improve the quality of instructional tools. Our mutual effort also highlights the fact that technology advancements can empower instructors to successfully create engaging opportunities for learning."

"McGraw-Hill Higher Education and the ETUDES Consortium will be providing faculty with additional options for online curriculum so they can better serve the learning needs of their students and more successfully achieve the learning outcomes of their courses," said Vivie Sinou, project administrator of The ETUDES Project and dean of Learning Technology and Innovations at Foothill College. "We are paving the way for the Sakai community to really take advantage of the learning and tools that result from this alliance."

About McGraw-Hill Higher Education Learning Solutions

McGraw-Hill Higher Education's Learning Solutions team combines digital and printed content, technology, and curriculum-development services to deliver holistic "learning by design" solutions. Additional information is available at http://www.onlinelearning.com/. McGraw-Hill Higher Education is a unit of McGraw-Hill Education, a leading global provider of instructional, assessment and reference solutions that empower professionals and students of all ages. McGraw-Hill Education, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE: MHP), is located in 33 countries and publishes in more than 40 languages.

About The ETUDES Consortium

The ETUDES Consortium, formed by Foothill College in 2002, is a community of institutions and individuals that support the development of open source (OS) tools for its platform, ETUDES-NG, and the Sakai software. The ETUDES Project, http://etudesproject.org/, fosters the development of web-based teaching, learning, and collaboration tools and offers centralized hosting, managed CMS services, training, and support to its members.

The project is housed and managed at Foothill College, continuing the legacy that was started in 1994 with ETUDES Classic. Membership to the Consortium and services is open to higher education institutions and other organizations that are interested in using ETUDES-NG to deliver and support instruction and need centralized support services.

The ETUDES Project partnered with the Sakai Foundation in December of 2003 and is coordinating its software development efforts with the Sakai community. Foothill has adopted the Sakai framework and is building upon Sakai for its platform, ETUDES-NG.

   Contacts:
   Tom Stanton                          Vivie Sinou (The ETUDES Project)
   McGraw-Hill Education                Foothill College
   Director, Communications             Dean, Learning Technology
   212-904-3214                         650-949-7109
   tom_stanton@mcgraw-hill.com          SinouVivie@foothill.edu

SOURCE: McGraw-Hill Higher Education

CONTACT:
Tom Stanton
McGraw-Hill Education
Director, Communications
+1-212-904-3214
tom_stanton@mcgraw-hill.com
Vivie Sinou (The ETUDES Project)
Foothill College
Dean, Learning Technology
+1-650-949-7109
SinouVivie@foothill.edu

Web site: http://www.mheducation.com/
http://www.onlinelearning.com/
http://etudesproject.org/