Education & Distance Learning Enthusiasts- eCollege.com And Versaware Join In Electronic Publishing Deal

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eCollege.com And Versaware Join In Electronic Publishing Deal - Brief Article

Educational Marketer - April 17, 2000

eCollege.com, an Internet solutions provider that partners with educational institutions to create online campuses, enhanced classroom teaching and distance-learning programs, has partnered with Versaware, an Internet and electronic publishing company. eCollege.com will offer Versabook textbooks and reference titles through its eCompanion and eCourse instructional environments. eCompanion complements classroom teaching, while eCourse is a distance education site.

Students who register for courses through eCollege.com's 150 educational institution partners can purchase required textbooks online through a link to Versaware's portal, eBookCity.com. The titles can be downloaded, viewed online or purchased on CD through the student's personalized "My Library." Any texts purchased will be available to the student permanently, not just during the course period.

"This radically increases the access for online distance students, and on-campus students as well, to texts and other course materials online," said Kevin Johnson, vice president of e-content services for eCollege.com. Previously, students enrolled in eCollege.com classes would check the online course syllabus, then purchase the required texts at a store or Internet retailer.

Students who set up a personalized Versaware "My Library" through eCollege.com will have free access to reference tools including Funk & Wagnall's Unabridged Encyclopedia and Random House Webster's College Dictionary, as well as thousands of out-of-copyright books ranging from Shakespeare plays to historical documents. Students can search these materials along with texts purchased for courses, allowing them to access the specific content they need for research or study. Students also can copy relevant Web pages to their "My Library" and get 20% off the price of hardcover textbooks.

"Up to now we've been in a vendor relationship with [educational] publishers, creating electronic textbooks for them. But we didn't have a distribution mechanism in place for the educational market," said Julie Greenblatt, vice president business development for Versaware.

The company distributes e-books to consumers through its own site, eBookCity.com and through partnerships with other sites such as ZDNet.

Versaware's technology lets readers create and organize personalized electronic libraries, which are updated and can be searched and cross-referenced. Its clients include McGraw-Hill, Pearson and Funk & Wagnalls.

eCollege.com offers educational institutions, including Rutgers, Johns Hopkins and University of Colorado, the technology and services to create online solutions and platforms for classroom and distance learning.

Contact: eCollege.com can be reached at 303-873-7400. Versaware can be reached at 212-727-8577.

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