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Agilix Labs GoBinder 2006 Provides an Extensible Mobile Learning Solution

Posted on: Wednesday, 19 October 2005, 12:00 CDT

ORLANDO, Fla., EDUCAUSE, Oct. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Agilix Labs, Inc., a worldwide leader in mobile learning solutions, today announced a new version of GoBinder(TM) to be available in early 2006. Called GoBinder 2006, the product minimizes the need to run e-learning systems in high availability mode, while providing an open, extensible architecture.

GoBinder 2006 addresses a common problem experienced by many higher education and distance learning institutions. To assist student learning, many institutions provide online e-learning systems, such as course management systems, to assist students with electronic course information, syllabus and content. To be useful, these systems need to run in 24x7, high-availability mode, which can be expensive to implement and manage. GoBinder 2006 enables students to synchronize content with these e-learning systems, so that institutions do not have to run them in high availability mode. Students keep an up-to-date copy of the e-learning content in their GoBinder databases, for offline access, and when online systems are unavailable.

"Investing in Agilix GoBinder enhances the robustness of our e-learning environment," said Daniel Tan, director of the Centre for Educational Development at Nanyang Technological University. "Because students have a complete offline copy of the Blackboard content stored on their notebook computers in GoBinder databases, the need to run Blackboard in high-availability mode is lessened. Student learning can continue without the need to have a direct link to the Blackboard server. In this way, GoBinder provides a more economical approach to business continuity of our e-learning systems, by minimizing the impact of a service outage. This makes the ROI of our GoBinder investment very easy to realize."

GoBinder 2006 is designed to be adapted to a wide array of mobile learning solutions. It provides an open interface for enabling synchronization with any possible learning source. It allows students to synchronize content from various e-learning systems, so they always have an up-to-date copy. Because of its open architecture and the GoBinder SDK (software development kit), integration with other e-learning systems can be rapidly implemented.

"GoBinder 2006 is an extensible mobile learning solution," said Curt Allen, Agilix president and chief executive officer. "The first step was our partnership with Blackboard to create Blackboard Backpack to synchronize course content with the Blackboard Academic Suite. With GoBinder 2006, we will further be able to help education institutions and publishers quickly create mobile learning applications with their internal e-learning systems, Web sites, online databases and other information resources."

"The open architecture of GoBinder 2006 is ideal," said Mark Payton, director of IT at Vermont Academy. "We have had great feedback from our students about GoBinder. Having the flexibility to adapt GoBinder to synchronize content to our proprietary e-learning systems we have today or may use in the future gives us confidence that our students will be able to continue gaining benefit from the product well into the future."

GoBinder 2006 includes a robust Sync Manager to "mobilize" learning content. Once a connection with an e-learning system is set up, students can synchronize information to their local GoBinder database. When changes are made to the e-learning system content, students can re-synchronize to get the latest copy any time they are connected. GoBinder 2006 provides application programming interfaces (APIs) for building "sync providers" to connect to any online learning resource. GoBinder 2006 can synchronize information from multiple sources and servers, even concurrently. It has the ability to monitor for a network connection, automatically poll for or subscribe to change notifications, and when changes are detected, initiate background, continuous synchronization.

Blackboard Backpack is a private label version of GoBinder 2006 that enables students to download and synchronize Blackboard Academic Suite content to a Windows XP desktop, laptop or Tablet PC for each course they are taking. Once course content is stored locally in the Blackboard Backpack database, students can view it offline, annotate it and search it. Blackboard-hosted content also appears the same offline as it does while online, thereby minimizing retraining requirements. Additions and changes made by faculty members are captured when students re-synchronize with the Blackboard server. Any student at a campus that uses Blackboard will be best served with Blackboard Backpack.

GoBinder 2006 provides "out-of-the-box" benefits to students, even without special connectivity plug-ins. With GoBinder 2006's unique Digital Paper feature, students can capture any learning information into annotatable, searchable content. This feature enables students to build a knowledgebase of key learning personalized for their use. Typed or handwritten notes (including ink), lecture notes, electronic handouts and Web research content stored in the GoBinder 2006 database is indexed and can be rapidly retrieved through a powerful search facility. GoBinder 2006 also makes it easy for students to manage their lives, by providing them with an easy way to manage their calendars and keep track of assignments. And students are able to share their personal learning easily with peers.

GoBinder 2006 is easy to implement on any campus. The product installs easily from the Internet. An auto update service allows students to stay current without requiring IT management. The application frequently polls an Agilix-hosted update server to query the availability of new versions. If a new version is available, the student can automatically install it.

GoBinder 2006 is currently in beta testing and will be released in early 2006. The product lists for $49 per student or $99 per professional user. GoBinder 2005 users will be able to upgrade to GoBinder 2006 at no extra charge. Quantity discounts are also available for education institutions that choose to purchase GoBinder 2006 for their students.

About Agilix

Agilix Labs, Inc. is a worldwide leader in mobile learning solutions. Education institutions that implement Agilix solutions deliver an enhanced student-centered learning environment. Specifically, Agilix applications enable students to utilize mobile computing devices to capture, organize, annotate, search and share learning content, including assignments, online courses, research, Web pages, documents and personal notes. In addition, Agilix-powered mobility software solutions give students full access to all learning content when they are not network connected. Agilix applications are open and extensible by schools, software developers and integrators, run on any Windows XP computer and take full advantage of the Tablet PC. Agilix has more than 150,000 users of its software applications in more than 110 countries worldwide. Agilix has strategic partnerships with Intel, Microsoft, Blackboard and FranklinCovey. A privately held company formed in 2001, Agilix is based in Orem, Utah. For more information about Agilix Labs, please visit http://www.agilix.com/.

Agilix, Agilix Labs and Agilix GoBinder are trademarks of Agilix Labs, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Agilix Labs, Inc.

CONTACT: Mark Calkins, VP, Product & Corporate Marketing of Agilix Labs,Inc., +1-801-932-1230, mark.calkins@agilix.com; or David Politis of PolitisCommunications, +1-801-523-3730, or cell, +1-801-556-8184,dpolitis@politis.com, for Agilix Labs, Inc.

Web site: http://www.agilix.com/

Source: PRNewswire

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