Artesia Technologies Announces Support for SCORM Initiative with Implementation of XML-based eLearning Standard.

Business Editors/Hi-Tech Writers

ROCKVILLE, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 19, 2001

Department of Defense-sponsored Program to Create Common

Standards for Educational and Learning Content for Federal Agencies

Artesia Technologies, the leader in enterprise digital asset management, today announced a software extension to support the Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) initiative as part of the company's broad support for this emerging standard.

Developed under the supervision of the Department of Defense-sponsored Advanced Distributed Learning initiative (ADL), SCORM is designed to serve as a common, XML-based standard for the use and distribution of e-learning content across all federal agencies.

Reference implementations at several Advanced Distributed Learning co-laboratories, deployed using Artesia's award-winning TEAMS digital asset management solution, represent a significant milestone in the SCORM standard's widespread adoption and are expected to lead to its establishment as the de facto protocol for e-learning content across numerous industries.

"The objective of the SCORM standard is to create a universal set of specifications supporting a single `content model' that will enable the interoperability of learning material developed by and for the federal government across multiple platforms, formats and distribution channels," said Judy Brown, director of the Academic Advanced Distributed Learning Co-Lab, which is based at the University of Wisconsin.

"Through its adoption, organizations can enjoy the benefits of enhanced content sharing between agencies, an improved ability to create dynamic and interactive programming, and significant cost-savings due to the availability of `off-the-shelf' solutions, such as Artesia TEAMS, for meeting this critical need."

The standard is being developed in part by the IMS Global Learning Consortium in which Dipto Chakravarty, Artesia's chief technology officer, serves as co-chair of the digital repositories committee. According to Chakravarty, "the deployment of XML at reference implementations demonstrates the underlying viability of the core standards for distance learning and represents a major milestone in the effort to ensure universal access to educational materials across interoperable systems."

"I am especially pleased that Artesia is supporting the import and export of SCORM 1.2 content packaging, which is based on the recent IMS packaging specification," said Philip Dodds, ADL chief architect and principal editor of SCORM. "We believe these specifications are the new 'coin of the realm' for exchanging learning content between repositories, learning management systems and learners. Artesia is demonstrating leadership by being among the first to implement this powerful capability."

Artesia's TEAMS digital asset management solution is an enterprise-class framework for the management of all types of digital content, including audio and video recordings, for distribution across online and offline channels.

Through its extensive capabilities to manage the associated XML-based metadata alongside the asset itself, TEAMS provides organizations with an easy-to-use solution for creating, identifying and managing the various meta-tag fields used to define content attributes within the SCORM initiative.

In addition to the IMS Global Learning Consortium, Artesia maintains active membership within a number of global organizations, such as PRISM, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the Graphics Communications Association (GCA), the Object Management Group (OMG) and XML.org, as part of its long-term commitment to supporting open computing standards. Artesia's TEAMS solution is available to federal agencies via the GSA schedule.

About Artesia Technologies

Artesia Technologies is the market leader in enterprise Digital Asset Management (DAM). Artesia's core product, TEAMS, enables organizations to capture, manage, and dynamically re-express valuable rich-media assets - video, audio, images, graphics, and text - and leverage them to exploit new business opportunities requiring targeted delivery of rich media.

In addition, TEAMS' open API and support for industry standards such as Java, CORBA, SCORM, and XML, enable the creation of enterprise-scale solutions.

Artesia's blue ribbon customers include thought leaders as impressive and diverse as AOL Time Warner, General Motors, Random House, Herman Miller, HBO, Discovery Communications and many more.

TEAMS is a recipient for the second consecutive year of the prestigious Crossroads 2001 A-List Award within the "Management and Reuse of Multimedia Assets" category and the software was also recognized by the Seybold Report on Internet Publishing with the editor's "Hot Pick" following its most recent release.

For additional information on Artesia Technologies, please visit our web site at www.artesia.com.

About ADL

The ADL Initiative is a collaborative effort between government, industry and academia, to establish a common framework that permits the interoperability of learning tools and content on a global scale.

The Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Department of Labor, and the National Guard have established the ADL Co-Lab as a forum for cooperative research, development and assessment of new learning technology prototypes, guidelines and specifications.

To learn more about, or to download, SCORM Version 1.2, visit the Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative Web site www.adlnet.org.

Artesia and TEAMS are trademarks of Artesia Technologies. All other names are the property of their respective trademark holders.