Giunti Labs showcases personalised and mobile learning content management at Masie’s Learning System

Giunti Labs, a global leader in e-learning and digital asset management, will showcase worldwide customer deployments and its holistic approach to the integration of personalised and mobile learning with digital content management and delivery, during Elliott Masie’s Learning Systems 2008 event, this week in Las Vagas in the USA.

Giunti Labs North America will be involved in the event as a sponsor, presenter and exhibitor. Reflecting the event’s focus on best practices, issues and deploying systems for organisational learning, representatives will be demonstrating the company’s award-winning product lines at the Giunti Labs ‘Sponsor Connection Point’.

Attendees of Learning Systems 2008 are encouraged to meet Giunti Labs to learn more about learn eXact®, the company’s flagship learning content management system (LCMS), and the HarvestRoad Hive® digital marketplace and repository solutions and technical content management system (TCMS).

As part of the conference agenda, on Friday 11th April, Stephan Thieringer, COO of Giunti Labs North America, will participate in a panel entitled ‘The Future of Learning Systems (Part 2): Interviews with CLO/CTO From Suppliers’. Hosted by Cushing Anderson, programme director of IDC’s Corporate Learning and Performance Research Group and co-host of Learning Systems 2008, the session is focused on current and future learning systems challenges.

Stephan Thieringer commented: "Globalisation is creating new demands and opportunities for learning. Through new mobile delivery platforms and the improved control and interoperability made possible through MIT’s Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI) and its OSIDs specifications for open service orientated learning architectures, we are now able to create a learning systems architecture that provides contextually relevant, personalised content – just-in-time, just enough and just as desired – to meet the needs of the individual learner."

Described by Elliott Masie as a ‘wonderful worldwide advocate for the learning industry’, Giunti Labs’ CEO, Fabrizio Cardinali joined Masie in advance of the show for a podcast on the state of digital learning and content. Listen to it at: http://learningsystems08.com/giunti or read a transcript at http://www.giuntilabs.com/info.php?vvu=15&pud=477

In the podcast, Cardinali comments on Giunti Labs’ leadership in emerging trends including the uptake of more informal and personalised learning content as well as on new delivery technologies including mobile devices, location based content, portals and Software as a Service (SaaS). He also describes the emerging ‘digital marketplace’ in which creators, traders and brokers will be able to pass content from digital repositories through learning content management systems, to make it easy for end-learners to download relevant content on the fly to their iPods, iPhones and through YouTube videos for educational purposes.

Cardinali’s podcast also details Giunti Labs’ recent acquisition of the HarvestRoad’s Hive® digital repository and technical content management system (TCMS), which are now integrated with Giunti Labs’ solutions for content authoring and management. These technologies are powerful tools that can drive the adoption and success of the digital marketplace.

From his viewpoint as Chair of the European Learning industry Group (ELIG), Cardinali closes his podcast discussion on how the world economy is affecting the industry and expresses his optimism on progress towards standards for reusable and discoverable content. Cardinali expresses his belief that open architectures like OKI and standards including SCORM and IMS Common Cartridge, Moodle and Sakai will streamline the packaging, harvesting and distribution of learning content.

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Notes for editors

About Giunti Labs

Giunti is unique in the international publishing industry.

In 1497, Giunti publishers and typographers in Florence, together with others in Venice, began modern book manufacturing. Over the years Giunti has built a ‘historical catalogue’ of huge dimensions, through a gradual process of ‘fusion’ of different publishers, but also through the creation of new brands, including Giunti Labs. Giunti Editore now includes 20 companies in the publishing sector. Giunti Labs, which has its global headquarters in Italy and offices in London (UK), Frankfurt (Germany), Lund (Sweden) and in Boston (US), provides a wide range of services, in response to any content, learning and knowledge management need, covering:
• Technological solutions for content, learning & knowledge management
• Architectural and technological solutions for mobile & wireless
• Consulting and training
• Content production
• Research and development

Giunti Labs provides the learn eXact® suite, Europe's leading e-learning and mobile learning content management technology. This suite is interoperable with all major vendor-driven and open source LMS and VLE solutions in the market including Plateau, Oracle, SumTotal, Saba, WebCT, Blackboard, Sakai, LRN and Moodle.

Moreover, Giunti Labs does not just adhere to the international standards relating to the LMS/LCMS world, it is one of the organisations that helps to determine and drive these standards: co-writing and developing them. Giunti Labs plays a key role in most of the international institutions for the definition of eLearning specifications (IEEE LTSC, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC36, CEN/ISSS WSLT, AICC, IMS, ADL-SCORM and OKI).

About HarvestRoad Hive®

HarvestRoad Hive is a Federated Digital Repository System (FDRS). It manages any form of content used in online learning, corporate training and knowledge management initiatives.
It is designed to establish a bridge between islands of content within and across multiple institutions or organisations, regardless of the type of content or purpose for its existence. HarvestRoad Hive is used to store and manage so called "learning objects" or "knowledge objects" and their metadata, assemble these into standards-compliant packages, and deliver that content on demand to learning and course management systems, corporate training systems or web portals.
HarvestRoad Hive is an independent digital repository; it can interface with practically any ERP, Learning or Course Management System and is already integrated with several commonly used course management systems, authoring and content assembly tools.

About Giunti Labs’ learn eXact® suite

Giunti Labs’ learn eXact is an e-learning and mobile learning content management system (LCMS) that enables users to create, manage and deliver content based on learning objects, XML, standards and international specifications. It delivers learning content to location-based mobile devices, interactive TV and wearable computer devices. Now the solution with its new eXact VLW plug in also delivers standard learning contents into 3D Virtual Worlds.

Further information from:
Minna Leikas, Giunti Labs, +39 3474435167, m.leikas@giuntilabs.com
Patrick Rafter, Giunti Labs North America (Boston, MA), +1-617-901-2697, p.rafter@giunitlabs.com
Bob Little, Bob Little Press & PR, +44 (0)1727 860405, bob.little@boblittlepr.com