Blackboard and Nuventive Announce Building Blocks Partnership to Integrate Electronic Portfolios with the Blackboard Learning System.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

WASHINGTON & PITTSBURGH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 12, 2003

Students and Faculty Can Easily Gather, Store, and Present

Experiences and Accomplishments

Blackboard Inc., a leading enterprise software company for e-Education, and Nuventive, which provides comprehensive assessment and portfolio solutions for higher education, have announced a collaboration through the Blackboard Building Blocks(TM) program to integrate the Nuventive iWebfolio electronic portfolio software with the Blackboard Learning System(TM).

Nuventive's iWebfolio is an innovative electronic portfolio that gives students and faculty and staff a personalized and flexible tool for storing and presenting a lifetime's worth of education and professional experiences.

iWebfolio provides an individual with the ability to store, organize, and display personal "learning" evidence to faculty, admissions offices, employers, and others through the creation of any number of portfolio views.

Portfolios can contain work samples, learning goals, personal reflections, educational and professional accomplishments, skills, activities, and competencies, among other items, in a broad variety of formats including text and multimedia. iWebfolio also provides the ability to interact with institutional improvement and assessment processes, as well as with faculty, mentors, and supervisors.

By integrating iWebfolio with the Blackboard Learning System, students can more easily share their course-related documents with instructors, study group members and organization members. iWebfolio can also help faculty members, departments, and schools meet institutional and accrediting goals, review student work, and provide feedback.

"Our relationship with Nuventive is in direct response to client requests for sophisticated electronic portfolio solutions that work in concert with the Blackboard Learning System," said Steve Hoffman, president and COO of Blackboard Inc. "iWebFolio will add valuable functionality and simplify the process of developing, submitting, assessing and tracking documents used in the Blackboard Learning System - for instructors, students, and academic institutions."

In addition to the collaboration with Blackboard through the Building Blocks program, Nuventive is working closely with SCT to integrate Nuventive's electronic portfolio and assessment products with SCT's industry-leading administrative systems.

This expanding cooperation is designed to provide an integrated suite of products that will bridge administrative systems, course management systems, and portfolios to help manage the academic and institutional assessment process. It will also help simplify the way in which institutions gather, store and present information for performance-based budgeting and accreditation purposes.

"Electronic portfolios and fully integrated applications are becoming more critical to the academic enterprise," stated David Raney, M.D., CEO of Nuventive. "By joining with Blackboard we can broaden our circle of partners and deliver more powerful, multifunctional, and integrated solutions to higher education institutions."

Blackboard's Building Blocks Program

Blackboard Building Blocks enables the extension of Blackboard's enterprise course management, community portal, and commerce and access systems.

The Blackboard Building Blocks program enables any client, vendor, or partner to integrate external applications, tools, content, and services into the Blackboard Learning System(TM), the Blackboard Community Portal System(TM) or the Blackboard Transaction System(TM).

About Blackboard Inc.

Blackboard Inc. was founded with a vision to transform the Internet into a powerful environment for the education experience. Blackboard is a leading provider of e-Education solutions serving the global needs of primary and secondary schools, higher education, corporations and government agencies.

Blackboard is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with offices and staff across North America, Europe and Asia. Please visit www.blackboard.com for more information.

About Nuventive

Nuventive, based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is an education-focused technology and consulting company with a mission to provide institutions, faculty, and students with the tools and services they need to effectively examine, improve, and manage their life-long learning process.

The product solutions offered by the company include TracDat, an institutional planning and assessment tool, and iWebfolio, an electronic portfolio.

In addition, Nuventive offers an array of services to complement its products. Nuventive entered into a strategic relationship with SCT, the industry-leading provider of software and services supporting higher education institutions, learners, and education communities, to leverage SCT's worldwide sales force and marketing channels. For more information, visit www.nuventive.com.