HarvestRoad signs with German distance education provider

Germany-based on-line learning course provider oncampus GbmH will use HarvestRoad Ltd's Hive digital repository system for its distance education programs, the Perth-based company has announced.

HarvestRoad Hive is a back-end application that acts as a search engine for users within an organisation, but is password protected to ensure intellectual property is maintained.

The full text of a company announcement is pasted below

Technology company HarvestRoad (ASX:HRD) today announced that oncampus GmbH has chosen HarvestRoad Hive® and IBM systems as its future digital marketplace Learning Object Repository infrastructure solution.

oncampus GmbH is made up of 25 German and Baltic Universities that provide e-learning courses for their International University Network that represents thousands of distant education program students from around the world.

Speaking on the announcement, Mr Grame Barty, Managing Director, HarvestRoad Limited said, "HarvestRoad Hive's® flexibility and high performance will not only deliver significant cost savings and productivity gains, but it will
enable oncampus GmbH to rapidly expand its network reach to new markets globally. By doing this they will meet the German Government's requirement to extend higher education course services to small and medium enterprises."

One of the key requirements of the solution was to have direct connections to the open source Learning Management Systems Moodle and Sakai to manage, reassemble, reuse and deliver content for the university consortia. HarvestRoad Hive not only excels in providing this "content bridge" from existing proprietary systems but the company has ongoing business partnerships with Moodle, RSmart Sakai and IBM.

Mr Barty added, "Our solution is able to respond to the needs of over 2,000 Power Users and manage over 150 different courses each with 300 Html pages and 15,000 media items."

The combined capability will enhance oncampus's status within Europe as an elearning 'mega content provider' and allow it to more easily meet the international course interoperability requirements in Europe based on the Bologna Declaration.

Commenting on the collaboration, Mr Barty said, "This is our first deployment into Germany and an outstanding example of the collaborative learning environment solution we have recently announced with IBM, Moodle and RSmart Sakai."

Services and implementation support will be provided by HarvestRoad's long term European business partner STOAS based in The Netherlands.