Cisco Unveils WebEx Social for Higher Education
Comprehensive Cloud-Based Collaboration Solution, Developed in Concert With Leading Higher Education Institutions, Helps Enable Faculty, Students and Administrators to Teach, Learn and Work Their Way
DENVER, CO, Nov 07, 2012 (Menafn - MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) --EDUCAUSE Booth #1114 -- To help higher education institutionsachieve breakthrough levels of learning and teaching, Cisco CSCO today announced the Cisco WebEx(R) Social for Higher Education.This integrated, cloud-based solution, developed in concert withleading higher education institutions, including Duke University,North Carolina State University, Case Western Reserve and Universityof Chicago, goes beyond email, learning management systems andportals to connect people, capture the vast knowledge and expertisewithin the education ecosystem, and make those resources easilyavailable to students and teachers anywhere.
The WebEx Social for Higher Education offer helps colleges anduniversities transform processes for increased productivity andinnovation, while substantially reducing IT infrastructure cost andcomplexity. Users can quickly identify subject matter experts, gathergroup feedback, co-author documents, immediately with ready access tomentors, relevant communities based on their course of study, classsyllabus, reading lists, and links to informational videos.
Key Highlights:
--Cisco worked closely with academic leaders from Duke University, North
Carolina State University, Case Western Reserve and University of
Chicago on the development of the WebEx Social for Higher Education
offer, to ensure its applicability and effectiveness in the education
sector. All four institutions are currently piloting the solution,
with Duke readying to extend it throughout its community -- students,
staff, faculty and administration -- in the coming weeks.
--The WebEx Social for Higher Education offer includes integrated WebEx
Social, WebEx Meetings and WebEx Messenger for presence and instant
messaging delivered through the Cisco WebEx Cloud. The Cisco WebEx
Cloud is a highly available cloud platform with unmatched performance,
integration flexibility and enterprise-grade security. Its global
footprint is ideal for universities with satellite campuses and
distant learning students worldwide.
--WebEx Meetings and WebEx Messenger Integration let users easily move
from social networking to real-time communications through
click-to-start instant messaging and web conferencing directly from
WebEx Social. The offer includes WebEx web conferencing for up to
eight attendees via VOIP. (WebEx web conferencing for beyond eight
attendees available at an additional cost).
--The ability to address the university need to dynamically manage user
access to the system for tens of thousands of faculty, students, staff
and administration is supported through mainstream technologies,
including Active Directory synchronization and Shibboleth
authentication. These technologies are used in the majority of higher
education institutions.
--WebEx Social makes it easy for users to personalize their experience.
Users can change layouts and customize page views by adding portlets
and OpenSocial-compliant gadgets, RSS feeds, suggestions, and more.
They can also view a consolidated activity stream of updates from
their network, communities, and people they are following, as well as
monitor their Watch List to keep up to date with important content
that has been shared, manually added, or commented on. Users can also
stay "connected" through WebEx Social's native support of multiple
operating systems and devices, including the Apple iPhone and iPad.
Supporting Quotes:
Tracy Futhey, vice president for information technology and chiefinformation officer, Duke University "We're always looking foropen, affordable and easily extensible collaboration tools that canhelp to bring our vibrant and diverse community together, even whenthey are separated by time or place. Cisco was willing to workclosely with us to truly understand the needs f the Duke community,and to find ways to meet those needs through the WebEx Social forHigher Education offering. As a result, we're bringing somethingunique and powerful to Duke, and by extension to higher educationmore broadly."
Renee Patton, senior director of education, US Public Sector forCisco "Technology is changing our lives at an incredibly rapid pace,yet significant work remains in providing colleges and universitieswith the collaboration tools needed to drive greater levels ofknowledge sharing and innovation. We developed WebEx Social forHigher Education in close cooperation with leading educationinstitutions, as a people-centric cloud collaboration platform thatunifies the education workspace and provides a connected learningexperience. We're excited about the impact this solution can have onimproving the quality and effectiveness of education worldwide."
Additional Resources:
--For further information regarding WebEx Social for Higher Education,
visit http://www.cisco.com/go/webexsocial
--For more information on Cisco Connected Learning, visit:
http://www.cisco.com/go/education
--Follow Cisco on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube
Tags/Keywords: Cisco Collaboration, WebEx, Higher Education, DukeUniversity, Case Western, University of Chicago, North CarolinaState, OpenSocial
RSS Feed for Cisco: http://newsroom.cisco.com/rss-feeds
About Cisco Collaboration From award-winning IP communications tomobility, customer care, Web conferencing, messaging, enterprisesocial software, and interoperable telepresence experiences, Ciscobrings together network-based, integrated collaboration solutionsbased on open standards. These solutions offered across on-premise,cloud-based or virtualized platforms, as well as services from Ciscoand our partners, are designed to help promote business growth,innovation and productivity. They are also designed to helpaccelerate team performance, protect investments, and simplify theprocess of finding the right people and information.
About Cisco Cisco CSCO is the worldwide leader innetworking that transforms how people connect, communicate andcollaborate. Information about Cisco can be found athttp://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go tohttp://newsroom.cisco.com.
Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks ofCisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Alisting of Cisco's trademarks can be found atwww.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third-party trademarks mentioned are theproperty of their respective owners. The use of the word partner doesnot imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any othercompany. iPad is a trademark of Apple, Inc. and Active Directory is atrademark of Microsoft, Inc.
Contact:
Marc Musgrove
Cisco Systems
408-525-6302
mmusgrov@cisco.com
SOURCE: Cisco
mailto:mmusgrov@cisco.com
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