New ANGEL Learning Management Suite and ePortfolio Versions Advance User Experience, Ability to Demonstrate Achievement

For Immediate Release - Feb. 7, 2008

Indianapolis, Ind. – February 7, 2008 – ANGEL® Learning, recognized innovator of enterprise elearning software and services, today previewed version 7.3 of the ANGEL Learning Management Suite (LMS) and ANGEL ePortfolio version 2.1. Optimizing the user experience is central to enhancements in both products. Functionality advancements, including new discussion forums and algorithmic questions in ANGEL’s market-leading assessments, will help drive student achievement.

“We are grateful for the consistent recognition in both K12 and higher education for our product design and the balance we’ve achieved between ease-of-use and powerful functionality,” said Ray Henderson, chief products officer, ANGEL Learning. “Our new products showcase a mutual effort with our customers to improve the user experience and system administration workflows, foster additional student interaction and participation and increase our value proposition in measuring learning outcomes.”

User Interface Customization and Themes
The ANGEL LMS has historically provided significant advantages to those interested in customizing the appearance of their LMS and the courses within it. ANGEL’s drag-and-drop functionality for page design is further enhanced in ANGEL LMS 7.3. Providing this familiar metaphor invites LMS users to personalize their environments. The release also features a new theme editor and additional subject and K12 themes. The result is thousands of combinations of buttons, tab styles and colors available to administrators and end users with WYSIWYG editing controls.

New Discussion Forums
Educators have long understood the power of discussion forums in online learning to generate class participation. The practical reality for faculty, however, has been extensive time spent managing forums and difficulty evaluating the volume of student work. For students, it is often difficult to navigate discussions to find the content needed among a growing maze of messages. ANGEL LMS 7.3’s newly designed discussion forums bring fresh thinking to these problems. Using extensive input and feedback from the ANGEL user community, the new discussion forums feature automated grading rubrics, extensive message filtering and navigational tools and forum management capabilities such as scheduled posts.

Enhanced System Administration
While ANGEL Learning’s core focus remains creating an ideal experience for teaching and learning, ANGEL LMS 7.3 brings ANGEL’s signature ease of use to the Administrator Console. Using input from an extensive series of working groups with ANGEL administrators, ANGEL LMS 7.3 solves a host of administrator pain points with improved batch operations, drag-and-drop customization and streamlined course and management workflows. 

ANGEL LMS’ unique agent technology is also now applied to the problems administrators face integrating data between the LMS and other enterprise applications. ANGEL LMS 7.3’s new system agents framework provides a rich graphical interface for designing integration jobs, validates that jobs function properly and monitors their operations throughout execution.

Algorithmic Questions
The ANGEL LMS assessment engine introduced to the market in 2007 has been very well received for its utility, assessment content management and precise item analysis. Now, ANGEL adds an innovative approach to “formula” based assessment. ANGEL LMS 7.3’s new algorithmic question engine allows faculty to define algorithms for assessments that are then created uniquely for each student at the time of delivery. This powerful new tool extends the capability of faculty to assess advanced student understanding in the natural science, economics and engineering disciplines.

ANGEL ePortfolio 2.1
Learning outcomes and portfolio assessment are becoming increasingly important to institutions across the educational spectrum. New features in ANGEL ePortfolio 2.1 that respond to student commentary improve portfolio design tools and portfolio creation workflow. In addition, a new ePortfolio dropbox in ANGEL LMS 7.3 responds to faculty interest in integrating coursework into the portfolio experience. Finally, ANGEL ePortfolio 2.1’s redesigned user interface operates just like the ANGEL LMS, making it easier for both faculty and students to use the ANGEL ePortfolio as an extension of the ANGEL LMS.

ANGEL LMS 7.3 and ANGEL ePortfolio 2.1 are scheduled to be released this spring. For more information about ANGEL LMS 7.3 and ANGEL ePortfolio 2.1, contact ANGEL Learning Sales at sales@angellearning.com.

About ANGEL Learning
ANGEL Learning, Inc. develops and markets enterprise elearning software. Our flagship products are the ANGEL Learning Management Suite and the ANGEL ePortfolio system. Our products have been honed by use – with millions of students and instructors served from K to corporate. We enjoy a reputation for creating products with exceptional ease of use, excellent vision into learner progress and for keeping our commitments. ANGEL LMS won the Software & Information Industry Association CODiE award for Best Postsecondary Course Management Solution in both 2006 and 2007 and is the only product to win the award two years in a row. Having emerged from the academy ourselves, our core values reflect those of our customers well. ANGEL world headquarters are in Indianapolis, Indiana. To learn more about the ANGEL difference, visit us at www.angellearning.com.

Media Contact
Nancy Schmutzler
(317) 333-7332
nancys@angellearning.com