NewMindsets Celebrates The brandon-hall.com / Online Learning Magazine Best Practice Award to Toronto's Schulich School of Business for its "Second Generation" E-Learning System

Chicago, Illinois. - October 1, 2002 - At a recent awards ceremony in Anaheim, California, The Schulich School of Business at York University was among the best practice medal winners showcasing exceptional work in the field of e-Learning. The aim of the awards program says Brandon Hall, Chair of the Excellence in E-Learning Awards program, is to "mirror the continuing growth, diversity and innovation of the entire e-Learning industry. It's our goal to celebrate and share these ground-breaking efforts and best practices to enlighten the industry as a whole."

This year, 142 entries were submitted to the overall competition. Entries were evaluated by more than 98 judges with expertise in instructional design and on-line or multimedia training and internal organizational e-Learning.

Schulich's award was based on its use of the NewMindsets second generation e-learning system and management skills content within the context of its innovative MBA program. Other award recipients included Cisco Systems, Avis Europe, University of Toyota, IBM and Lockheed Martin.

Schulich's innovative "four courses in one" approach to leadership and management skills development integrates learning in the classroom, team project discussions, course-wide discussion forums and reflective personal learning. The NewMindsets performance learning system was used to provide a practical focus - helping learners apply all their learning to specific problems through worksheets and exercises built into each learning resource.

"Our experience is that when it comes to e-Learning 'content is king'...but it has to be second generation content that puts the learner firmly in control of their learning," says Dr. Patricia Bradshaw, Schulich's MBA Program Director. "NewMindsets partnered with us in developing and delivering a world-class on-line system to support blended learning in our core MBA program. It's helped to put our 'four courses in one' approach to leadership and management skills development at the forefront of management education worldwide. The quality and depth of learning produced by the NewMindsets system continues to exceed all expectations."

Dr. Bradshaw also noted that the NewMindsets "approach has increased our return on technology investments and resulted in profound student learning at a graduate and executive level. While qualitative evidence of student learning is our most powerful indicator, the online usage numbers are also impressive. For example, between September and December 2001 - the period covered for our best practice award - the NewMindsets system had 4,860 logons for 17,716 hours - an average of 3.6 hours per use. Similar results are being produced this year. We are now extending use of the system to provide learning support throughout the MBA program through our own customized application of the NewMindsets 'Management Survival Kit'."

"The Schulich program truly deserves its best-practice recognition - it's a marvelous achievement" says Gareth Morgan, Distinguished Research Professor at Schulich, and Chairman of NewMindsets Inc. "The Management Skills Program provided a crucial test of the NewMindsets system in practice, and it's great to see their pioneering efforts in blending e-learning with classroom education being recognized. Research shows that over 80% of learners prefer non-linear approaches to learning. Our experience with the 'second generation' approach at Schulich, and at our corporate sites, is that if you can create a structured environment in which this can happen - for example by linking the learning to specific objectives - it's possible to create major new value for the learner."

Steve Strelsin, Chief Executive Officer of NewMindsets, added "Our company is truly honored by the Schulich award. We believe that it demonstrates our leadership in fusing the best learning principles with web technology. Our 'second generation' approach is the key to getting a major return on e-Learning investments - because it has a performance learning rather than traditional compliance learning focus. The aim is to help people improve their overall competence and job performance, not just to pass learning assessment tests. We are committed to having NewMindsets function as a stand-alone performance support system as well as blending it to enrich and dramatically increase the value of classroom learning".

About NewMindsets

NewMindsets is a second-generation e-learning company whose products and services provide real-time, online performance support and offer granular content that helps learners address key business issues and develop critical competencies. NewMindsets has dual company headquarters in North America in Chicago and Toronto. NewMindsets e-learning solutions serve organizations and individuals globally across a variety of industries including healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, professional services, technology and governmental organizations.

Contact:

Matthew Levin
Chief Business Development Officer
NewMindsets, Inc
243 West Goethe Street
Chicago, IL 60610

Phone: 312.933.9370
Fax: 312.337.8945
E-mail: MattLevin@NewMindsets.com
URL http://www.newmindsets.com

About Schulich School of Business

Schulich, Canada's Global Business School, offers several undergraduate and masters' degrees including the MBA, International MBA, MPA, MBA/LLB, MBA/MFA as well as a joint Executive MBA with Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University.

Schulich has the largest MBA program in Canada with 700 full-time and 600 part-time students. It is among the top 10 schools outside the US and 31st among the top 100 worldwide in the Financial Times of London 2002 MBA rankings. Schulich was ranked #1 in Canada in Canadian Business Magazine 2001 MBA Rankings and Forbes ranked Schulich among the world's best b-schools for return on investment. Schulich has also been awarded "cutting edge MBA program" distinction in the Beyond Grey Pinstripes 2001 survey and is among the world's top three in sustainability and social impact management.

URL http://www.schulich.yorku.ca

print this screen