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Thomson Custom Solutions Gives Instructors New Options for Designing High Value Course Materials


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Thomson Higher Education gives customers ultimate choice and flexibility through new customizable offerings

Belmont, CA, 05/03/2006, Thomson Higher Education, a global provider of teaching solutions for higher education and part of The Thomson Corporation (TSX: TOC; NYSE: TOC), today announced three new custom publishing offerings from Thomson Custom Solutions (TCS) designed to provide greater choice to educators and improved value to students.

The new offerings give professors additional options for designing course programs tailored to their individual teaching styles as well as the needs of a given group of students and include: Flex Texts, a variety of print-online hybrid solutions; Thomson Custom Collections, groupings or collections of materials that can be mixed and matched; and the Signature Series, premium custom publishing services for authors including development, design, technology and marketing.

These new options are the latest innovations of TCS. TCS partners with faculty and administrations to develop tailored options to traditional textbooks, providing content, tools, services, formats and expertise in demand across the learning markets. Faculty can integrate subject matter from a variety of sources, including the most-relevant sections of traditional texts, and combine it with original content, personalized institution information and design options.

“We focus on a great customer experience, so we are dedicated to ensuring students and faculty are provided with the greatest choice of teaching and learning options, both print and online. And, we work one-on-one with our customers to cost-effectively tailor their materials to meet their individual course objectives and student audiences,” said Jonathan Hulbert, president of Thomson Custom Solutions. “With our newest customizable options, faculty can quickly and effectively develop educational materials that are an exact fit for their courses, ensuring that their students are not paying for un-used materials.”

New offerings by TCS include:

FlexTexts: combine essential coverage with flexibility, allowing instructors to fine-tune and make additional selections to match course needs. Each Flex-Text is designed to meet a unique need for the course and may be delivered in print, online or a hybrid of both. Examples of Flex-Text options include:

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Flex-Text Hybrid – Blends the best of print and online by providing the most essential chapters of a text in full-four color print format with the choice of over 100 customized cover options. In addition, offers the option to include as many of the remaining chapters and course resources-including digitized video of student speeches from your course—on a customized companion Web site.
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Flex-Text Print Handbooks – Spiral-bound, print version of the market-leading Thomson Wadsworth English composition handbooks creating a highly personalized and convenient resource for students. Designed for easy access, each section of the handbook is separated by tabs, helping students quickly reference needed information. The first tab is customizable to include a syllabus, institution policies, writing samples, style guides or other information. In addition, the handbook is printed with a custom cover to include the instructor title, course information and photos, if desired. These custom options are available at the same net price of core texts.

Thomson Custom Collections: provide readings, cases, exercises, labs and other resources for a wide variety of topics and course areas. Each collection aggregates both popular and hard-to-find content selections and formats into library of options while including intuitive browse and search features that allow instructors to quickly and easily find the content needed. Selections can be used to create an affordable course companion or can be integrated into customized textbook.

Signature Series: a collection of premium services for our key customers with a focus on original works to provide authors with a full range of customized publishing services including development, design, technology and marketing. The TCS professional publishing services and editorial team ensure a rewarding authorship experience.

In addition to the established content library available through Thomson Custom Collections, Flex-Text allows for the inclusion of original material, reinforcing Thomson Custom Solutions’ commitment to meeting customer needs to provide the greatest choice possible. Professor handouts, a syllabus, paper assignments, student papers or any other course materials can easily be included in the publishing process as supplements to the available collection resources.

“Thomson Custom Solutions offers faculty the choices they have always wanted,” said Raymond S. Pfeiffer, Ph.D., Delta College. “The opportunity to publish one’s own text or workbook as needed is superlative! The chance to customize existing texts, shortening them to suit the precise needs of one’s own class is ideal! No organization could offer better service than I have had with Thomson Custom Solutions.”

“I was very impressed with how quickly Thomson developed my customized Finance casebook with the material I selected from their online database. It looked great, just like a regular text,” said Rick Proctor, Siena College.

In addition to the literary works available through Thomson Custom Collections, TCS also allows for the integration of audio, video and interactive instruction. Instructors can choose which of these additional supplements they want to accompany the customized text.

“We see ourselves as innovators, committed to providing a wide range of solutions to faculty and students at the best value possible. Thomson Custom Solutions gives instructors total control and choice, ensuring that students are getting only what is needed,” said Hulbert.

About The Thomson Corporation and Thomson Higher Education

The Thomson Corporation (www.thomson.com ), with 2005 revenues of $8.70 billion, is a global leader in providing integrated information solutions to business and professional customers. Thomson provides value-added information, software tools and applications to more than 20 million users in the fields of law, tax, accounting, financial services, higher education, reference information, corporate e-learning and assessment, scientific research and healthcare. With operational headquarters in Stamford, Conn., Thomson has approximately 40,000 employees and provides services in approximately 130 countries. The Corporation’s common shares are listed on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC). Thomson Higher Education is a leading provider of higher education textbooks, software, and Internet materials for the humanities, behavioral and social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, and business and economics. It publishes under the brands of Thomson Wadsworth, Thomson Brooks/Cole, Thomson South-Western, Thomson Heinle, and Thomson Schirmer.



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