Blackboard Announces Blackboard Learning System ML and Major Expansion of International Operations.

Business Editors/Hi-Tech Writers

LISBON, Portugal--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 22, 2002

New release provides industry's first multi-language enterprise-class

virtual learning environment for global e-Learning initiatives

At the World Education Market 2002 (WEM), Blackboard Inc. unveiled the Blackboard Learning System ML(TM) - the multi-language edition of its market-leading course management system - setting a new industry standard for excellence in multilingual enterprise learning environments.

Responding to the feedback of its international clients and partners, Blackboard created Learning System ML to allow academic staff and students around the world to fully experience all aspects of the course and system user interface in their language or languages of choice, and to switch between languages - all within a single implementation.

"The [English version of] Blackboard Learning System has been widely adopted on our campus and the number of users and courses increases tremendously every semester. The forthcoming international version of Blackboard will surely further the system's acceptance on our own campus as well as throughout the German market," stated Georg J. Anker, Abteilung fur Neue Medien, Universitat Innsbruck.

Scheduled for release mid-year 2002, the system initially will enable a variety of languages, including German, Japanese, Chinese, French, and Spanish. Others, including Portuguese and Italian are currently under development. The system, developed on fifth-generation Blackboard code-base now deployed at more than 2,400 institutions, will run on both Windows and Solaris platforms.

Blackboard Learning System ML permits a culturally tailored online environment for all users. The platform is fully Unicode-architected, enabling the system to interact in virtually any language as determined by the end user, instructor or system administrator. This architecture also enables Blackboard to expand the number of languages offered with relative ease and fast time to market.

Already, nearly a dozen clients and partners have committed to expanding the language packs available for the platform.

"We are committed to ensuring our clients' success in the near and long term - regardless of their region or preferred language," said Andrew Rosen, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Blackboard International. "Our global client base increasingly requires educational technology that can cross all borders, and the release of Blackboard Learning System ML represents our continued investment in being a global company and ensuring our clients' successes on a global basis. It also allows our native English clients in the U.S. and elsewhere to offer immersion language courses without running a separate server."

Expands on Reputation for Ease of Use and Pedagogical Effectiveness

The multi-lingual offering continues Blackboard's commitment to pedagogical effectiveness, ease of use, international standards, and scalable architecture. Blackboard's teaching and learning solutions began on the campus of Cornell University in the U.S., and Blackboard served as the primary contractor to the IMS Global Learning Consortium standards project at the project's conception.

Based on the setting selected by the institution, Blackboard Learning System ML offers a variety of industry-leading features:

-- Language Customisation for User Interface - users have the ability to set
the language of their choice for the interface to appear. For example, a
student can select to view their course environment in German while a peer
enroled in the same course can view the environment in French.

-- Language Preference for Content - regardless of which language(s) the
institution has downloaded for the user interface to display, a user can type
or upload content in any language(s) and the text will be recognised and
displayed appropriately.

-- Locale Specification - the institution can determine which locales they
would like to deploy for their users. Each locale dictates the manner in which
times, dates, names, addresses, and currencies are displayed.

Interoperability and Blackboard Building Blocks

Like Blackboard Learning System, the multilingual edition is designed to interoperate with an institution's administrative systems, including SCT, SITS, Capita, Datatel, HIS, and PeopleSoft, as well as authentication systems such as LDAP and Kerberos.

This integration lets an institution enrich the student experience by providing personalised access to campus services and a tighter connection between academic and student life. This interoperability also reduces training and support costs through centralised administration and management.

Blackboard Learning System ML also underscores the Blackboard Building Blocks(SM) Programme which provides an open architecture to enable third-party learning applications, interfaces, and system services to interact seamlessly with Blackboard.

More than 25 Independent Software Vendors (ISV's), dozens of academic institutions, and leading publishers across the world are developing add-ons to Blackboard to expand and add value to the educational experience.

Worldwide Network of Partners

In tandem with the introduction of Blackboard Learning System ML, Blackboard has established a network of worldwide partners to extend Blackboard's service offerings. Leveraging the resources already provided directly by Blackboard, the partners will offer in- region sales and product support, training, and systems integration, among other services.

The growing network includes iGroup (Asia/Pacific), NextEd (Asia/Pacific), Cognos (Latin America), Quipus (Latin America), Softek (Caribbean), eDegree (South Africa), Educomp (India), Microsys (Italy), and Stoas (the Netherlands).

About Blackboard

Blackboard Inc. was founded to transform the Internet into a powerful environment for teaching and learning. The company offers a complete suite of enterprise software products and services that power a total "e-Education Infrastructure" for schools, colleges, universities and other education providers.

Blackboard solutions deliver the promise of the Internet for online teaching and learning, campus communities, auxiliary services and integration of Web-enabled student services and back office systems.

The Blackboard Learning, Community Portal, and Transaction Systems are consistently ranked by industry analysts as the market share and customer satisfaction leaders for thousands of academic institutions and a leading number of the Internet's most popular consumer education sites.

The company is headquartered in Washington, D.C., U.S., with its international headquarters in the Netherlands and has with offices and staff across North America, Europe and Asia and Latin America. Please visit www.blackboard.com for more information.