Education & Distance Learning Enthusiasts- Chippewa Valley Technical College Uses Centra for Online Meetings and Distance Learning

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Chippewa Valley Technical College Uses Centra for Online Meetings and Distance Learning

Business Wire - November 4, 2003

Business Editors/Education Writers/High-Tech Writers

ANAHEIM, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 4, 2003

Chippewa CIO Takes Lead in Helping CIOs Nationwide

Leverage Centra and Other Rich Media Solutions for Higher Education

Centra Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: CTRA) today announced at the EDUCAUSE 2003 Annual Conference that Chippewa Valley Technical College (CVTC) in Wisconsin is using Centra's real-time Web collaboration software to deliver virtual classroom learning and facilitate online meetings and staff development. Since Centra was first deployed a year ago, CVTC has replaced expensive interactive TV technology for many of its programs and is now leveraging Centra's reliable voice-over-IP capabilities, video conferencing and other interactive tools to deliver distance learning to hundreds of students.

"Centra provides the level of interactivity we need to effectively engage students and faculty online, and reach those learners connecting from home PCs regardless of location or type of Internet connectivity," said Timothy Tewalt, an electromechanical tech instructor at CVTC who is driving the widespread adoption of Centra among faculty.

CVTC delivers superior, progressive technical education to improve the lives of students, meet the needs of the region and strengthen the larger community. This mission is what brought CIO Mike Mathews to the college, where he has deployed Centra on an enterprise scale to meet learning goals and improve college-wide communications.

"Centra has allowed us to significantly enhance our offering and dramatically reduce the cost of delivering distance learning by several hundred thousand dollars annually," said Mathews. "We have also made Centra collaboration a way of life here at Chippewa, where 90 percent of our administrators are meeting online. This helps us to increase productivity and avoid unnecessary travel."

CVTC President William Ihlenfeldt is using Centra to create stronger ties with colleagues and business leaders across the state, where meeting online is often the only way to quickly and conveniently bring everyone together.

"Centra has been instrumental in allowing us to connect with our education and industry partners to collaborate and plan for the development of our statewide workforce," commented Ihlenfeldt.

According to Mathews, the strong support he receives for making IT investments in Centra and other technologies has enabled CVTC to maintain the lowest cost per student in the 16-member Wisconsin Technical College System, without sacrificing the quality of its programs.

Uniting CIOs Nationwide

Mike Mathews has made Centra a cornerstone in an initiative he is spearheading to educate CIOs in higher education institutions on how they can deploy fuller, more cost-effective technology solutions for distance learning.

Mathews is using Centra to host online meetings with colleagues at Loyola Marymount University in California and Wentworth Institute of Technology in Massachusetts to develop and gain support for a nationwide expansion of the program. Mathews is uniquely positioned to make this happen through his network at Collegis, located in suburban Orlando, Florida, which provides education, business and technology services to higher education institutions.

"Collegis has a well-rounded customer base with more than 100 CIOs at universities and colleges across the country," said Mathews. "With products like Centra, we can tap into this network of CIOs and expose them to advanced communications and learning solutions for their institutions. We can create a community among colleagues to share ideas and best practices."

Joyce Bokuniewicz, Centra's director of higher education solutions, agrees that creating this type of CIO network is exactly the type of support higher education needs to take Web collaboration to the next level. "Universities and schools were among the earliest adopters of Centra for online learning. Now we are starting to see how institutions such as CVTC are using online collaboration to create networks among school systems and reach outside of academia into the business community. We are excited about the prospect of working with Mike Mathews to introduce Centra to CIOs nationwide."

About Centra

Leading with a proven track record of helping approximately 1,200 organizations increase revenue and improve business performance, Centra offers enterprise application software that enables organizations to deliver real-time communication, collaboration and learning across the extended enterprise. Centra offers solutions that deliver enhanced integration of real-time collaboration capabilities with departmental business processes, such as sales and marketing, and virtual teamwork. Available in 14 languages, Centra applications can be deployed as on-site software or through our ASP service and are supported by an active ecosystem of value-added partners, including Microsoft, Oracle, Siebel, Deloitte Consulting, EDS and Cisco. Organizations across every major industry and market sector choose Centra, including Cadbury Schweppes, McKesson, Sysco, Viacom and Stanford University. Headquartered in Lexington, Massachusetts, Centra serves a worldwide customer base throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia. For more information, visit www.centra.com.

Centra is a registered trademark of Centra Software, Inc. All other trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners.

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