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Cisco Announces Connected Learning Technology Blueprint and New Higher Education Solutions


WEBWIRE

New offerings help educators create global, highly secure, and untethered learning environments

ORLANDO, FL (Educause)- October 19, 2005 - Cisco Systems, Inc. today unveiled its technology blueprint for higher education and announced three supporting solutions focused on security, distance learning and intelligent campuses. Cisco Connected Learning is a three-step blueprint that helps higher education institutions transition their college or university to a student-centered, globally-aware 21st century learning environment. To help educators meet the fundamental challenge of a Connected Learning campus - to provide anytime, anywhere highly secure access to all resources - Cisco also announced three new solutions: Cisco Campus Secure, Cisco Virtual Classroom and Cisco Connected Real Estate for Education. These announcements were made today at Educause in Orlando, FL, where Cisco is demonstrating its full suite of higher education solutions.

“Cisco Connected Learning supports our overall goal to help educators achieve academic excellence and improve administrative efficiencies,” said Charles Fadel, global lead for education solutions at Cisco. “Through a connected campus and ’classrooms without walls’, today’s higher education institutions can provide their students with personalized, flexible and geographically independent learning, tapping into virtually unlimited global education resources.”
Cisco Connected Learning: Meeting the Challenges of 21st Century Higher Education

Cisco Connected Learning is built around a three-step blueprint aimed at creating a campus that can provide anytime, anywhere access, flexible education - including distance learning - media-rich curriculum, and lifelong resources.

Building the right campus environment: to improve collaboration and enable students, faculty and staff to have physical and virtual secure access, higher education institutions must start by putting the right network foundation in place. A scalable and resilient, converged, IP network will help improve campus communications and operational efficiencies, while also enabling schools to provide new service offerings.

Moving to student-centered learning and teaching: to create individualized learning models and ultimately encourage lifelong learning, schools must shift their focus to provide customized education. By building on the converged campus network and adding more applications, colleges can create ’smart’ connected classrooms, residence halls, and campus facilities.

Expanding innovation and technology to create a ’campus without walls’: to develop a 21st century learning environment, higher education institutions must connect their schools with other worldwide academia, businesses, communities and organizations. By extending the network to access global resources on a daily basis, information becomes ubiquitous and students, faculty and staff are empowered to learn.

“Cisco Connected Learning captures the essence of what we have accomplished at Case Western University with our OneCleveland initiative,” said Lev Gonick, vice president of information technology services and CIO at Case Western Reserve University, located in Cleveland, Ohio. “By using the network to bring together all of the assets from the greater Cleveland metropolitan area, we have created unparalleled academic, business, cultural and financial opportunities for the university and its regional partners.”
Campus Secure, Virtual Classroom and Connected Real Estate for Education: New Solutions for Higher Education

Cisco Campus Secure helps educators address their most pressing challenge by protecting wired and wireless information, resources and assets, focusing on three key areas: Identity Management and Network Admission Control, Adaptive Threat Defense and Bandwidth Management. By securing the edge of the education network to help prevent unauthorized access, as well as detecting viruses or malware that may be present in user devices, Identity Management and Network Admission Control address the common security challenges inherent in education. The Adaptive Threat Defense component establishes a network’s normal traffic patterns and provides alerts when unusual traffic patterns are detected. And to help address the common problem of bandwidth allocation among network users, Bandwidth Management enables educators to develop a strategy that shares bandwidth more equitably among users.

“Preventing viruses and worms from attacking our network has been a key priority for ASU, much like other campuses around the world,” said William Lewis, Ph.D. and CIO of Arizona State University. “Cisco Secure’s Identity Management and Network Admission Control capabilities have reduced the number of our security incidents from 6,000 a year to less than 100. And we have accomplished this with minimal intrusion to our student population.”

As colleges and universities continue to further develop their coursework, improve their flexibility and enhance collaboration and interaction among students and teachers, new types of multimedia and distance learning tools are required. Cisco Virtual Classroom blends audio, video, Web collaboration, white-boarding and instant messaging capabilities into a complete, integrated distance learning solution.

Cisco Connected Real Estate for Education helps campuses centralize and manage each of their building management functions, such as access control, CCTV, HVAC, fire and alarm and BMS, etc., by integrating all of these services onto one converged IP network. By deploying a single network, higher education institutions can more efficiently deploy their personnel and resources and reduce operational and building lifecycle costs, while also providing new services for students, faculty, guests and the community at large and generating new revenue streams.

Cisco Campus Secure, Cisco Virtual Classroom, and Cisco Connected Real Estate for Education are available today worldwide. Cisco will be demonstrating its entire suite of higher education solutions at Educause Booth # 610. For more information, please visit www.cisco.com/go/education

About Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems, Inc (NASDAQ:CSCO) the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet, this year celebrates 20 years of commitment to technology innovation, industry leadership and corporate social responsibility. Information on Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, go to http://newsroom.cisco.com



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