RINET Selects The rSmart Group to Provide a Statewide ePortfolio Solution for All Rhode Island K-12 Students By 2008.

PHOENIX -- The rSmart Group, Inc. (rSmart) today announced they have been selected by Rhode Island Network for Educational Technology, Inc. (RINET) and its consortium membership made up of RI's K-12 schools and districts to implement and support the statewide initiative to make ePortfolios available to all K-12 students by 2008. RINET will support the rSmart OSP ePortfolio(TM) to improve RI districts' ability to monitor and measure student performance and progress while allowing individual students to demonstrate skills, knowledge and abilities.

Currently deployed in schools throughout the United States and Canada, the rSmart OSP ePortfolio(TM) collects, manages and demonstrates the artifacts of student learning throughout their educational experience. The flexibility of its architecture allows this solution to be implemented across a statewide enterprise like Rhode Island or in a single institution such as the University of Rhode Island, which is also an rSmart client. Through RINET an estimated 160,000 students and 10,000 faculty and staff members will be able to rely on the rSmart OSP ePortfolio(TM) for capturing vital artifacts of learning as well as evaluating and monitoring student performance against state and locally defined criteria.

During the selection process, members of the RINET consortium including district educators and administrators, university faculty, and Rhode Island Department of Education personnel came together to review and evaluate all available solutions. "This is one of the most significant Educational IT initiatives in the state's history and it was imperative that we collaborated with a partner rather than just purchase a product from another vendor," said Steve Foehr, Director of Information Services, RINET. "We were impressed with rSmart's willingness to work with us to build a system that will work for Rhode Island's students and educators. We believe the flexibility of the system will allow teachers and students to work closely together so that students can successfully demonstrate proficiency through portfolio assessment as well as provide districts with important data regarding their diploma system."

Starting with the class of 2008, students will be expected to demonstrate proficiency based on meeting rigorous state and national content and applied learning standards as measured by course work, state assessments, and successful completion of a school-wide diploma assessment (graduation portfolio or exhibition). "The rSmart OSP ePortfolio(TM) is one of the ways that high school students will be able to demonstrate proficiency for graduation purposes under the new RI Diploma System," added Mr. Foehr. "rSmart's solution was best able to meet the needs of Rhode Island districts because of its ability to be implemented across a wide range of school sizes and technical requirements. These factors along with its ability to integrate with similar solutions being used at the college and university level, made rSmart the best choice for Rhode Island," said Steve.

"It is rewarding to have the RINET consortium select rSmart as a partner to help transform the learning environment and effectiveness of Rhode Island's educational institutions with an ePortfolio solution that we believe is on the leading edge of learning assessment and performance measurement," said Ray Barker, CEO, rSmart. "We look forward to working closely with RINET and the institutions of Rhode Island to realize this innovative vision."

About The rSmart Group

The rSmart Group is the leading open source application software company serving the higher education market. rSmart packages, certifies, deploys, and supports a suite of enterprise financial and collaborative learning applications for colleges and universities. As an active member of open source projects like OSPI, Kuali, and Sakai, rSmart is able to provide its clients with software applications specifically designed to meet the unique needs of institutions of higher education. This collaborative approach allows rSmart to offer colleges and universities open source applications that break their dependence on traditional proprietary software vendors.

Please visit www.rsmart.com for more information.

About RINET

RINET, Inc. is a non-profit corporation operating exclusively in the State of Rhode Island as a collaborative partnership to support the needs of its K-12 educational community. RINET provides services to over 95% of Rhode Island's K-12 public school districts, and private and independent schools.

For more information, please visit the RINET on the web at http://www.ri.net/RINET/.