WebCT Unveils WebCT Vista 4; Enhancements Advance Ease of Use, Flexibility and Effectiveness of First-of-Its Kind Academic Enterprise System

SAN FRANCISCO--July 20, 2005--WebCT, provider of higher education's most flexible and widely used e-learning solutions, today announced a new version of the world's first and only academic enterprise system, WebCT Vista(TM), that will further enhance colleges' and universities' power to effectively deliver and manage online education across the academic enterprise.

Available now, WebCT Vista 4 offers a wide range of enhancements to its user interface, teaching and learning tools, and administrative processes. It also includes a new organizational level that gives institutions more flexibility in mapping their e-learning system to their unique organizational structure.

More than 200 institutions have adopted WebCT Vista as the central system to manage their academic enterprise. "Large universities like mine are looking for dependable, scalable, and extensible online learning systems that in themselves provide all the core functions to support instruction and course administration," said Lanny Arvan, Assistant CIO for Educational Technologies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "With Vista 4, WebCT has produced a very solid offering that fits the bill nicely."

User interface enhancements

With the significant enhancements to the user interface in WebCT Vista 4, faculty can create and manage their courses in less time and in fewer steps than ever before, and students can navigate through course materials more easily. To learn more about the enhancements to the user interface, please visit www.webct.com/vista4.

Virtual Course Environment Enhancements

WebCT Vista 4 includes new features and enhancements that make it easier for faculty to prepare, deliver, and manage their courses -- ultimately improving the learning experience for students. For example, a new Quick Start Page enables faculty to rapidly add tools to their courses. An enhanced My Grades area enables instructors to easily provide students important information related to their grades - for example, Grade Book statistics to show students their performance relative to the class, as well as comments on an assignment or assessment.

Extended Community Manager

WebCT Vista 4 includes an important enhancement to the WebCT Vista Community Manager: an additional organizational level. The new "Division" level gives institutions even more flexibility in configuring WebCT Vista to match their unique organizational structures. For example, an institution could create a faculty of arts and establish economics, history, and English as groups within that Division.

Administrative Enhancements

Administrators will also notice many important changes in WebCT Vista 4 that will save time and make it easier to manage user data, content, and start and end-of-term activities.

"WebCT Vista 4 represents the refinement and maturation of a product that has elevated online learning to a core function of the academic enterprise," said WebCT President and CEO Carol Vallone. "We have treated it as such with enterprise level technology and features, many requested by customers and many anticipating customer needs."

WebCT Vista, the industry's premier Academic Enterprise System (AES), is the only e-learning platform specifically built to support mission-critical, enterprise-class e-learning deployments. WebCT Vista provides a state-of-the-art teaching and learning platform consisting of:

-- Virtual Course Environment for course preparation, delivery, and management

-- Community Manager for supporting diverse operating groups on campus

-- Learning Object Manager for distributing and reusing academic content

-- PowerLinks Kit for software development

-- PowerSight Kit(TM) for reporting

The Community Manager, Learning Object Manager, PowerLinks Kit and PowerSight Kit are now also available as WebCT Vista modules that can be used with the WebCT Campus Edition 6 virtual course environment. As a result, institutions using WebCT Campus Edition 6, with specific enterprise e-learning needs, can selectively acquire capabilities that previously were available only in the WebCT Vista academic enterprise system.

About WebCT

WebCT has set the standard for e-learning systems in higher education. Based in Lynnfield, Mass., WebCT provides a highly flexible e-learning environment that empowers institutions across the educational spectrum with the ability to achieve their unique objectives for faculty empowerment, administrative efficiency and student outcomes. Colleges and universities around the world - from community colleges to large university consortia - are using WebCT to expand the boundaries of teaching and learning. For more information, please visit www.webct.com.