Washington, U.S.A — Funded on a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to the University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA), a task force comprised of representatives of leading national organizations in online and e-learning in higher education, has issued a report on the future of online learning in higher education.

The Task Force includes representatives from the American Distance Education Consortium (ADEC), the Association of Continuing Higher Education (ACHE), EDUCAUSE, the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C), UPCEA and the WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET).

The Summit on the Future of Online Learning held in Chicago in September 2011 addressed many of the issues facing online learning in higher education today. An outcome of the Summit was a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to convene an Inter-Organizational Task Force on Online Learning.

“Each of these organizations is deeply engaged in the development, delivery and support of high quality online education,” said Robert Hansen, CEO of UPCEA. ”This report lays the foundation for working together with the goal of advancing the interests of the students and institutions we serve through quality online learning.”

The report, issued October 3, 2012, calls for several action steps to achieve that goal:

“This is a unique initiative among the leading national associations in online and e-learning in higher education,” said Ray Schroeder, Chair of the Task Force and Associate Vice Chancellor at the University of Illinois at Springfield. ”In the rapidly evolving online environment, it is important that we draw upon the knowledge and experience of those who represent the colleges and universities who have demonstrated their commitment to quality and innovation in this field.”

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Atlanta and San Antonio, U.S.A. — Fisher & Phillips and Inspired eLearning, have joined together to produce a new series of web-based compliance training courses for supervisors and employees. They have announced the initial release of an updated workplace harassment training program, and plan to release a broad-based suite of courses to train managers in all areas of employment laws and corporate ethics.

Fisher & Phillips is one of the nation’s leading management-side labor and employment law firms, with over 275 attorneys in 27 offices nationwide. Inspired eLearning is one of the most recognized developers of online training programs covering employment law, compliance and ethics. Together, they are developing courses that run the gamut of employment law and compliance issues that are becoming more extensive, complicated and global.

The attorneys at Fisher & Phillips are developing content on subjects that include: sexual harassment, discrimination, social media, hiring, wage and hour compliance and protection of trade secrets. Inspired eLearning produces online courses employers can utilize across their enterprises, including in foreign countries.

The company produces courses in 21 languages. Employers also benefit from the Learning Management System (LMS) developed by Inspired eLearning. LMS tracks training completion and provides reports back to management.

Inspired eLearning President Martin Rico said: “Employers are under increased pressure to comply with ever-changing employment laws. They must ensure that their workers understand and comply with laws to help companies avoid fines and litigation. The attorneys at Fisher & Phillips understand what businesses face and they present information in a way that business people and other working professionals understand. In addition to creating the course material, the attorneys are prepared to provide follow-up training at work sites and to assist our clients in reviewing policies, developing codes of conduct, assisting in investigations and managing litigation.”

Fisher & Phillips Managing Partner and Chairman Roger Quillen said: “Our clients have for years benefited from the training our attorneys provide to them both at their workplaces and online. We were looking for a platform to extend this valuable training. Inspired eLearning has the structure, expertise and desire to deliver the best possible training to companies that recognize the importance of keeping their leadership and staff up-to-date on employment law.”

Quillen went on to say that the training is important to medium and large multinational companies. “They face serious challenges in getting training to their people when they’re scattered around the globe.”

Joe Ambash, Managing Partner of Fisher & Phillips’ Boston office and leader of the training project, stated: “Our innovative and creative approach to compliance training combined with Inspired eLearning’s worldwide platform will result in a superior level of training for employers worldwide.”

About Inspired eLearning

Inspired eLearning creates custom eLearning courses that work, meaning ones that deliver tangible business benefits, such as reducing the cost of training programs, ensuring legal compliance or increasing sales, productivity or customer satisfaction. Its training programs have been used by more than 3,000,000 people and have received rave reviews from organizations such as ADP, Johnson Controls, Bridgestone Firestone, Hearst Corporation, MedImpact and Northeast Utilities, just to name a few.

The professional services team can conduct a needs analysis, author original training material, produce highly engaging and interactive eLearning content, deploy your training and provide you with world-class service and support.

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Inkling is a digital textbook company started by Mat MacInnis, an American engineer graduated Harvard who worked for Apple. MacInnis writes that the company started with a vision for a better textbook which is interactive, engaging and took advantage of the opportunities afforded by new media like iPad.

But the main clue is not only to reinvent publishing or books but to reinvent the way people learn. Accordingly to this statement, MacInnis and his team came up with idea of reinventing textbook to make them more like computers. The idea predicts that new e-textbooks will be an answer to higher expectations of students to their learning tools.

Recently, Inkling released Version 2.0 of their popular iPad application. The app offers nearly 50 of the world’s most popular undergraduate, business, and medical textbooks. Features of Inkling 2.0 include study groups developed for discussion sessions anywhere with anyone, including professors, friends and experts.

There is an expert in every book who knows the information inside and out. Additionally, the reader has access to discussions and popular comments which are very helpful to grasp the concept. Often the author of the book itself gives notes and can answer questions asked within the book’s interface.

Another extension is an organizer of all your notes, highlights, bookmarks and other links that you create. It also involves notebook. The 2.0 version also includes the integration of Wikipedia and Google for in-book searching beyond the book. Moreover, there is a possibility of purchasing chapters from a textbook from $2.99 per chapter.

The biggest advantage of the Inkling textbooks is the fact that they are designed with interactivity in mind. As an example, biology and anatomy textbook include 3D rendering of bones, muscles and molecules which can be rotated to see all the details from each side. Medical students reported that Inkling’s books are smarter and more intuitive than complicated texts which are currently in use.

The subjects which are not visual, like history for instance, are still a challenge for Inkling designers who must improve to differentiate their products from competition — mainly Kno, Amazon Kindle Textbooks Rental and Barnes & Noble’s NOOK Study.

According to MacInnis, the company is approaching 100 natively-rendered e-books at the moment. MacInnis said that these books make up over 50 percent of the textbooks used in the United States of America.

However, comparing this numbers with over 100,000 books that competitive Kno has scanned for iPad, with similar social media features and basic note-taking most students who are not scientists might choose the better price. What is more, the convenience of having all their receipts from one place cannot also stay without comment.

Inkling can push out a new textbook in about 4 to 6 weeks but to deserve the fast-changing tablet-toting student, MacInnis will have to continue his mission to fix to the format of 21^st century textbook which can fulfill all learning people needs even those expectations that users are not conscious yet.

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