Named FirstClass ED (for Educational Development), this new elearning management module facilitates the creation of a dynamic, secure, online training environment where classrooms evolve into collaborative online elearning and training communities shared by all influencers in the online elearning and training process, including students, teachers, parents, peers, education advisors, guidance counselors and administrators.

With the introduction of FirstClass ED, training organizations can easily deploy virtual classrooms that enable teachers and students to electronically manage many of the activities associated with the cycle of elearning within a class, including:

- Simple wizard-based electronic classroom creation

- Powerful tools for authoring, deploying and sharing curriculum

- Automated assignment workflow

- Flexible classroom activity management

- Effective student performance and progress tracking

- Integrated class collaboration tools

- Online reference and resource repositories

"What sets FirstClass ED apart from other elearning software is its unique ability to provide a single view into all facets of a collaborative elearning community. This includes at the classroom level, right down to individual student performance," said Cameron Forlong, Director of eLearning Solutions for the FirstClass Division of Open Text. "The power of FirstClass ED lies in its ability to enhance elearning, improve student outcomes, and deliver the resources of an entire extended elearning organization to the classroom, thus providing teachers with the ability to better meet the unique needs of each individual student."

FirstClass ED is the latest in a series of software that extend the FirstClass elearning communication and collaboration platform. FirstClass is a feature-rich, platform-independent, and cost-effective software solution that enables businesses and learning organizations to create collaborative online training communities that securely connect people and resources via any Internet-accessible device. FirstClass delivers a broad range of capabilities including e-mail, instant messaging, calendars, contact management, collaboration, document sharing, file storage, web publishing and voice and fax messaging. Thousands of organizations and millions of users around the world are currently connecting via online training communities powered by FirstClass.

The FirstClass Division of Open Text provides FirstClass, a leading elearning collaboration and communications platform for businesses and elearning and training organizations. Open Text is an independent provider of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions that bring together people, processes and information in global organizations. For more information on FirstClass ED, go to www.firstclass.com