15desks Launches to Transform the Way People Manage Academic Lives.

SaaS-Based 15desks Serves as a Lifetime Academic Hub, Connecting the Learning, Teaching, Creating - and Becoming - People Do Throughout Their Lives

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -- As the realities facing the educational system grow ever harsher - dwindling resources and ballooning class sizes, to name just a few - a new company, 15desks (www.15desks.com), today launched with a solution designed to transform the way people manage all aspects of their academic lives.

The premise is this: all of the work and creativity people invest into both teaching and learning - at all academic levels - should be easily stored, organized, accessible and sharable at all times, from anywhere, throughout their lives.

Employing SaaS-based technology, the web-based 15desks has spent the past two years building a secure, agile architecture designed to make that happen. 15desks aims to empower educators, students, parents, administrators and even the business community to connect with each other, share resources and manage all things academic from one secure place online. The architecture is already in place to expand and embrace all aspects of the academic life and all related communities and businesses.

Today, the company offers an on-demand course management solution at no charge to individual teachers and students, and to departments, institutions and school districts. It's available immediately via www.15desks.com; it takes just a few minutes to get started online. There's no need for bureaucracy or board meetings - the solution is available on an individual basis.

Over the next year 15desks will roll out additional services. They include tools to empower parents with more access and information about their children's progress, online career development tools that proactively match students and employers, features for educational institutions, access to books online and a host of other educational applications.

Because 15desks uses a SaaS-based platform, there's no hardware, no software, no upfront investment, no maintenance burdens, no downtime and no steep learning curves. All hosting and maintenance is handled by 15desks. The company employs military-level security and the highest standards of data encryption to keep all data private and safe, using 256 bit SSL encryption on every data page.

"This is a big solution to a big problem," said Zare Baghdasarian, CEO of 15desks. "Why shouldn't our academic lives be as easy to manage and as connected as our business or social lives? The name 15desks represents an ideal - it conjures images of the ideal teaching situation and the ultimate learning environment. Imagine what could be accomplished if interaction and resources could flow freely - among educators, students, parents, administrators and even future employers."

The standard solution available today enables educators to manage all of their curriculums, grades, assignments and student communications from one or multiple schools - all from one secure place online, accessible on demand from any computer with Web access.

Students use 15desks to connect with their peers and teachers, share resources, keep track of deadlines and submit assignments. It's designed for maximum ease-of-use - it's possible to reach any feature or page in just three clicks.

Already, users of the initial product say 15desks facilitates more meaningful interaction between teachers and students - even as class sizes grow. Forum capabilities enable out-of-class communication, grading features make it easy for both educators and students to stay informed in real time, and file sharing capabilities make it easier to share more resources at no added expense to the teachers, the students or the schools.

Closer to the Ideal - 'More Aware of My Students and Their Needs'

Johanna Movassat, a professor at San Jose State University, has been using the solution since late 2007. She said that 15desks' all-around course management, with grading features, allows students to have up-to-date information on where they stand in class, what their grades are at any given moment, and how close (or far) they are from an "A."

"15desks has made me more aware of my students and their needs because I am in constant contact with them," said Movassat. "It has made my teaching job easier and more accurate, and a lot less work - I don't have to spend hours photocopying or grading. And since all my courses are retained online, I don't have to reinvent the wheel each semester. I just duplicate my course, and all the readings and links are there for me to keep or change. Fabulous!"

More than 6,500 educators and students currently use 15desks to manage their courses, from University of California, Los Angeles; University of California, Santa Barbara; California State University, Fullerton; San Jose State University; City College of San Francisco and more.

About 15desks

15desks goes beyond class management to serve as a central hub for all academic activity for individual teachers, students, departments, schools and districts. The founders believe that the work and creativity people invest into both teaching and learning should be easily stored, organized, accessible and sharable at all times, from anywhere, throughout their lives. Today, 15desks offers a SaaS-based, on-demand course management solution at no charge to individual teachers and students, and to departments, institutions and school districts. It's available immediately via www.15desks.com; it takes just a few minutes to get started online. There's no need for bureaucracy or board meetings - the solution is available on an individual basis. The privately funded company launched in 2007, and is based in Santa Barbara.