Hult International Business School chose Canvas by Instructure to replace Moodle as its new learning platform for its five campuses in Boston, San Francisco, London, Dubai and Shanghai.

The choice came after a thorough pilot involving 21 courses and resulted in a decision to move all courses to Canvas before the fall 2012 semester.

“We wanted academic consistency across cohorts, degree programs and campuses, which fueled our commitment to moving all courses to Canvas at the same time,” said Dr. Mukul Kumar, Chief Academic Officer at Hult. “Hult’s Interactive Teaching approach creates an integrated experience that enables our faculty to complement active in-classroom training with digital resources. The adaptable Canvas platform allows us to incorporate best-in-class digital resources and address multiple learning styles.”

In its 2012 global MBA rankings, the Financial Times ranks Hult International Business School first in International Experience and third in International Business. Students studying at Hult have the option to rotate from their home campus to two additional campuses during the program. Hult empowers students to develop real-world skills, and as such, six weeks of the program are dedicated to a hands-on action project for a major company.

Hult applied its emphasis on experiential learning to the recent Canvas pilot. Using Hult’s Technology Management course, students taking the class became consultants and provided Hult’s administration with a recommendation. The students conducted a thorough analysis of Moodle vs. Canvas, including gathering quantitative survey data and qualitative data. In the end, more than 90 percent of students recommended that Hult adopt Canvas.

Additionally, Hult wanted a learning platform with mobile capabilities that had a 21^st century look and feel. Hult’s commitment to providing its students with iPads to help them compete in the increasingly mobile learning environment mirrored Canvas’s mobile functionality.

“We developed specific iPad applications for faculty to grade assignments and for students to engage in their courses,” said Brian Whitmer, co-founder and VP of Product Management at Instructure. “We also created Canvas to be optimized for the mobile web, so it works on all mobile devices natively in the browser.”

For more information on Canvas visit: www.instructure.com/canvas

About Instructure:

Instructure is a technology company committed to improving education. We provide instructors and students modern tools and resources to empower the learning experience. Founded by graduate students in collaboration with educational institutions, Instructure provides Canvas – the open, easy-to-use, cloud-native learning platform.

About Hult International Business School

Hult is the world’s most international business school with campuses in Boston, San Francisco, London, Dubai and Shanghai. The school offers a range of business-focused programs, including MBA, Executive MBA, Master and Undergraduate degrees. Hult’s one-year MBA program is ranked in the top 30 in the world by The Economist and first in International Experience by the Financial Times.  www.hult.edu.

Contact Information:

Devin Knighton
Director of Public Relations
Instructure Canvas
(801) 722-8187
[email protected]

VersionOne, recognized by agile practitioners as the leader in agile project management tools, today announced that the company has launched its seventh annual State of Agile Development Survey.

The State of Agile Development Survey provides respondents and industry professionals with insight into best practices for the effective adoption and scaling of agile development initiatives. Launching during the Agile2012 conference in Dallas, the survey will remain open for participation through September 2012.

In its seventh year, the State of Agile Development survey is sponsored by VersionOne and conducted by independent research firm, Analysis.Net. Emerging as one of the preeminent surveys for the agile development market, the State of Agile Development survey has received more than 20,000 responses in its first six years, with more than 6,000 software professionals participating in 2011.

“Agile development is constantly evolving, making it increasingly important that software organizations understand best practices and current trends.  Feedback from their peers on proven benefits, challenges and successes helps them to get the most out of their agile experience,” said Robert Holler, president and CEO of VersionOne. “The Annual State of Agile Development survey is a key component of our commitment to make agile easier to adopt for organizations of all sizes.”

The State of Agile Development survey is now open to industry professionals attending the Agile2012 conference and to online respondents. Those who complete the survey will be provided with the results first, giving them unique insight into the latest agile development trends and practices. In addition, respondents will be entered into a raffle to win one of several prizes including a MacBook Air 11, two new Apple iPads, and Amazon gift cards.

For those interested in responding to the survey, it can be found online at http://agiledevsurvey.com, or stop by VersionOne’s booth on the Agile2012 exhibition floor. Show attendees who stop by the company’s booth to complete the survey can also sign up to receive a complementary trial of the VersionOne product.

About VersionOne

VersionOne is recognized by agile practitioners as the leader in agile project management tools. By simplifying the planning and tracking of agile projects, we help teams deliver better software faster. Since 2002, companies such as Adobe, Boeing, bwin, Intuit, Lilly, Lockheed Martin, Oppenheimer, Qualcomm, Sabre and Siemens have turned to VersionOne. Today more than 50,000 teams around the world use VersionOne. For daily VersionOne and agile development news follow us on Google+, Twitter, Facebook and our blogs. Agile Made Easier @ VersionOne.com.

The Hoffman Agency, for uSamp:
Juliet Niczewicz, 408-975-3091
[email protected]

VersionOne, recognized by agile practitioners as the leader in agile project management tools, is celebrating its 10-year anniversary.

Founded by Robert Holler and Rajiv Delwadia in 2002, the company helped pioneer the enterprise Agile Project and Lifecycle Management market. Today, VersionOne remains the only enterprise software company 100 percent dedicated to agile and lean development since inception.

“All the appreciation in the world goes out to employees, customers and partners who have helped us both survive and innovate over this last decade,” said VersionOne President and CEO Robert Holler. “From our first cramped, smelly room where we joked about measuring productivity in ‘story points per square foot’ of office space to our current corporate offices in Alpharetta and downtown Atlanta, we have been blessed to work with people who are passionate about progressing the state of software development. Agile development is certainly not just about changing practices or tools; it’s about changing the world of software development.”

When agile development first began to take off, and teams grew in size and projects grew in complexity, VersionOne delivered one of the first commercial toolsets to help companies easily manage and scale their agile projects.  “We still have the original notecards that we used to plan the very first version of our product,” said Holler.

As the market evolved, VersionOne continued to expand its product footprint and scalability to support larger and larger teams. Today, VersionOne offers a series of product editions that are targeted at teams ranging in size from 5 to 5,000.

“The agile development market has come a long way since our startup days when 8 of us were crammed into a hotel room at an office suite in Alpharetta, GA,” said Co-founder Rajiv Delwadia. “In its early days, agile development appealed to primarily small, leading-edge teams practicing Extreme Programming (XP) as a disciplined way to accelerate delivery and compete against larger, traditional organizations. Instead of long project timelines and fixed budgets, the idea was to be first to market by building and shipping updates faster than the competition. Today organizations of all sizes embrace agile development as a best practice.”

For more information on VersionOne’s suite of agile project management tools, please visit http://www.versionone.com/Product/Agile-Project-Management-Tool-Overview/.

About VersionOne

VersionOne is recognized by agile practitioners as the leader in agile project management tools. By simplifying the planning and tracking of agile projects, we help teams deliver better software faster. Since 2002, companies such as Adobe, Boeing, bwin, Intuit, Lilly, Lockheed Martin, Oppenheimer, Qualcomm, Sabre and Siemens have turned to VersionOne. Today more than 50,000 teams around the world use VersionOne. For daily VersionOne and agile development news follow us on Google+, Twitter, Facebook and our blogs. Agile Made Easier @ VersionOne.com.

Naperville School District 203 has selected Canvas from Instructure as its new, modern learning platform for all its elementary, middle and high schools.

Canvas provides improved collaboration between students and teachers and a way for teachers to deliver media-rich lessons and assessments to students. Naperville 203 opted against a traditional evaluation process and chose an all-inclusive approach, involving input from parents, students, teachers and staff.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120201/SF45541LOGO)

“We chose Canvas to meet the broad educational needs from across the school district,” said John David Son, Director of Instructional Technology at Naperville Community Unit District 203. “We looked at Canvas from every direction and followed a collaborative process that involved many groups of people before making our selection.”

The selection process contrasts the traditional approach to IT purchasing used within a school district. Instead of having IT evaluate systems and make a choice on its own, Naperville 203 chose to conduct roundtable stakeholder sessions with teachers, students, parents, administrators and technology staff to discover their needs in a learning management system.

The 8-month process included more than 100 stakeholders and led to a Canvas pilot with 30 teachers and 500 students within the school district. Following the selection process, Naperville 203 chose to utilize a rollout process to approximately 25 percent of the district with a goal to make Canvas available to all teachers, including K-8, by August 2013.

One of the needs identified in the process is for Canvas to assist elementary and middle school teachers, not just those teaching high school classes. Naperville began training teachers this week and already has more than 100 teachers across the K-12 spectrum ready for the new school year.

“We built Canvas with students, parents and teachers in mind as a place where they could all come together with the unified goal of helping the student,” said Brian Whitmer, co-founder and VP of Product Management at Instructure. “We believe an essential part of improving secondary education is providing effective tools that engage students in, and keep parents informed of the learning experience.”

For more information on Canvas for secondary education visit: www.instructure.com/k12

About Instructure:

Copyright © 2012, Instructure, Inc.  All rights reserved. Instructure, Canvas and their respective logos are registered trademarks or trademarks of Instructure, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other brands and names may be claimed as the property of others.

Contact:

Devin Knighton, 801-722-8187, [email protected]

Monetate, a leading provider of cloud-based technology for online marketers, reported its largest quarter of new customer sales in the second quarter of 2012.

The company sees an increasing demand from brands to act on data to deliver more relevant customer experiences in real time.

Monetate’s solutions, which combine A/B and multivariate testing with behavioral targeting, merchandising and product recommendations, are used by global brands across a spectrum of industries. Monetate enables brands to use Big Data to increase conversions by creating a more relevant online experience.

(click here to read about how RevolveClothing.com used testing to create the ultimate customer experience)

According to data from research firm eMarketer, 45 percent of companies reported that they are not effectively using data to personalize online marketing, citing the inability to apply data insights on the individual customer level. Monetate’s solutions turn big data into action, which has spurred its growth in the second quarter. Of the 28 new clients who signed with Monetate in Q2 — including drugstore.com, National Geographic, Boscovs, Mattel and Gamestop — many are working with Monetate to personalize the online customer experience through the application Big Data.

(click here to read “Four Steps to Simplifying the Big Data Challenge”)

“Companies are excited about the opportunity big data presents, but many are still unable to act on the data to deliver the online experience customers now demand,” said Monetate founder and CEO David Brussin. “Monetate helps marketers tap into the power of big data and develop features that matter to their customers and ultimately drive conversions. Monetate’s expertise in delivering actionable data is at the core of our success.”

Also during Q2 2012, Monetate opened its EMEA headquarters in London driven by strong demand for the company’s services in those areas. The company was also recognized among the top 250 private technology companies by AlwaysOn and its CEO David Brussin was named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year for Greater Philadelphia.

“One of the biggest trends we’ve seen in the latest wave of web innovation is the use of data to drive intelligent decisions across all aspects of the business,” said Josh Kopelman, Managing Director of First Round Capital. “Monetate understands how to put this collected data into action, and it’s exciting to see the company bring this analytical approach to its customer base of large global brands.”

About Monetate

 Monetate drives billions of dollars of revenue every year for some of the best-known brands in the world, including Best Buy, Comcast, Urban Outfitters, Aeropostale, The Sports Authority, and PETCO. The company’s comprehensive product suite and conversion expertise enable marketers to deliver a more relevant customer experience with unprecedented agility.

Leading marketers rely on Monetate’s cloud-based browser technology to achieve a new level of speed and control, allowing them to run 16 times more optimization campaigns compared to industry averages. The Monetate Agility Suite includes advanced products for testing, merchandising, targeting, and cross-channel consistency, providing an opportunity to bypass IT restraints and react in real time to customer demands. Monetate also helps marketers implement best practices and drive online revenue through its expert strategic services and content publishing teams. For more information visit http://monetate.com/ or follow us on Twitter @Monetate.