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Under this agreement, Stoas Learning has become the exclusive supplier of Giunti Labs’ learn eXact suite of products in the Netherlands. These products comprise an advanced authoring environment for e-learning materials as well as a learning content management system (LCMS) which is compatible with most virtual learning environments (VLEs)/ learning management systems (LMSs) including open source VLEs such as Moodle and Sakai.
According to Stoas Learning, the key benefits of using learn eXact are:
• A strong authoring environment;
• Its extensive use of industry standards;
• De-coupling of content and lay-out;
• Single source input to support multiple outputs;
• Its unique template approach;
• Single source maintenance.
“learn eXact enables users to distribute content from one source - accessible via a web interface - to a wide variety of platforms including Moodle, Sakai and Blackboard,” explained Stoas Learning’s CEO, Ed Botterweg.
“Moreover, this can be delivered to a wide range of equipment - including PCs, websites, interactive television, CD-ROMs, smartphones and other wireless devices such as PDAs – as well as via a wide range of media, including pdf, html, textbook, virtual worlds and, for assessment and testing, QTI.
“Its modular way of storing information enables authors to update specific content without influencing other data. A learning object only needs to be altered once because of the ‘single source’ principle – which means that alteration is automatically carried through into all e-learning modules that use this object.”
Giunti Labs’ learn eXact complies with national and international agreements, and such standards as SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004, AICC, IMS, IMS ePortfolio and IMS QTI. Complying with the SCORM 2004 standard makes it possible for e-learning modules that have been developed with learn eXact to be played via every VLE that supports this standard.
“learn eXact is also backwards compatible when new versions arrive,” pointed out Fabrizio Cardinali, Giunti Labs’ CEO.
He continued: “learn eXact enables the easy use and re-use of course components, otherwise known as learning objects. With this, it is possible to develop ‘didactic design’, to give shape to learning materials by using templates.
“A didactical design can be shared with colleagues, so that this can be filled with new learning materials quickly – bearing in mind that learn eXact specifically separates content and design.”
Stoas Learning offers training to organisations to help them develop content for their e-learning modules in-house.
Giunti Labs’ learn eXact is already being used in a number of industries including the military; avionics; automotive; telecoms; pharmaceuticals, banking and finance, as well as the public and education sectors. Current clients include Lockheed Martin; the Dutch division of Thales, the St Louis Division of Boeing; the French and Spanish Ministries of Defence; Scania; Volkswagen; Abbott Pfizer; Astra Zeneca; Kaplan Financial; SwissRe; Banca Intesa; Unicredit; the Italian Government; the Italian and Swedish Post Offices: the NHS in the UK; the Health and Safety Laboratory; Lubeck University’s OnCampus; Moscow Steel; Florence and Bologna Universities; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Open Knowledge Initiative; the University of Maryland University College;General Electric; the Budapest Atomic Plant; Italy’s ENI; Cegos, Europe’s largest softskills training provider; Ericsson; Alcatel-Lucent; TIM; Fastweb; Microsoft; Gucci; BSKyB; Felxtronics, and educational publishers Harcourt and Elsevier.
About Stoas Learning
Based in the Netherlands, Stoas Learning is a leading provider of digital learning solutions to both the educational market and large corporations. Its client-base comprises major corporations and governments as well as middle and higher vocational education institutes.
Stoas Learning delivers software and services to administer and support the learning process with state-of-the-art systems, such as Blackboard, Questionmark Perception and the open source VLEs, Moodle and Sakai. The company is also well known for its innovative multi-media content development. In the last ten years, it has produced hundreds of learning modules for a variety of customers.
About learn eXact Enterprise LCMS
learn eXact Enterprise comprises a series of interoperable modules for domains, users and profiles and contents creation management, workflow processes, projects management, contents delivery and performances reporting. Among other things, it:
• Enables more flexible workflow
• Provides workflow status summaries and action lists
• Is a project management tool
• Includes more roles and metadata configurability
• Allows easy editing of user roles and permission
• Allows easy editing of content metadata
• Allows easy team structure management and revision
• Allows easy task editing and association, including within active projects
• Contains full versioning and roll-back functions
• Contains a fully customisable ‘skin’ to ensure a corporate family ‘feeling’
• Has localisation capability
• Enables data export in XML format via web services
• Includes simple search or metadata search at digital repository level
• Contains a search preview function.
The learn eXact Enterprise platform uses the following technologies:
• Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 / 3.0
• C# language
• ASP.NET 2.0
• Web Services
• Windows Workflow Foundation
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005
• Java (to support eXact Glove)
• Web technologies: HTML, CSS, HTTP(S), XML, XSLT, WSDL.
About Giunti Labs
Giunti Labs is a leading Online and Mobile Learning Content Management Solutions provider with global headquarters in Italy and offices in London (UK), Frankfurt (Germany), Lund (Sweden), Boston (US), as well as Sydney and Perth (Australia).
Giunti Labs provides a wide range of solutions, in response to any content, learning and knowledge management need, covering:
• 24/7 multi language learning content production
• LCMS and Digital Repository Platforms
• Delivery solutions for mobile & wireless
• Consulting and professional services.
Giunti Labs is part of Giunti Group, a leading educational and cultural heritage publisher with roots back to 1841. Over the years Giunti has built a catalogue of huge dimensions (over 7.000 titles) and acquired new brands in Italy and worldwide.
In 2008, Giunti Labs acquired the HarvestRoad Hive digital repository system, which manages any form of content used in online learning, corporate training and knowledge management initiatives. HarvestRoad Hive can interface with practically any ERP, Learning or Course Management System and is already integrated with several commonly used course management systems, authoring and content assembly tools.
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