Educational Institutions Embrace Novell Teaming Solutions to Solve
Collaboration and Productivity Challenges
Local school districts gain access to social networking tools for better
communication and knowledge sharing throughout primary and secondary
institutions
WALTHAM, Mass., Oct. 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Novell today announced
further success of its Teaming solution within the K-12 education market.
Understanding the growing need for individual schools and districts to foster
more efficient communication and knowledge sharing among the teaching and
administrative staff, Novell is providing collaboration solutions that blend
flexibility and customization to serve the education market and its specific
productivity challenges and budget requirements.
Highlighting Novell's recent traction in this market are three school
districts who each have distinct collaboration needs within the K-12 market.
Beaver Dam Unified School District, Beech Grove City Schools and Tuscaloosa
City Schools are all using Novell's Teaming solution to unify operations
across physical boundaries, reduce costly travel budgets and establish a
professional learning environment that allows teachers and staff to
collaborate in real time.
"Novell is committed to providing solutions that address the key collaboration
challenges that all organizations with large groups of people and multiple
locations face," said Wendy Steinle, director of Solution and Product
Marketing, End-User Computing for Novell. "Our Teaming solution deployed at
Tuscaloosa, Beech Grove and Beaver Dam illustrates how primary and secondary
education institutions can improve communications, save costs and streamline
operations, freeing educators and staff to focus on the core mission --
educating students."
Beaver Dam Unified School District
Seeking a more cost-effective and flexible collaboration platform, Beaver Dam
Unified School District, located north of Madison, Wisconsin, selected Novell®
Teaming to virtually change the whole thought process behind collaborative
education and move it beyond the traditional classroom. The district created
an online workspace for its faculty and staff to work together without leaving
their buildings. Now, users share files and ideas, access the staff newsletter
and participate in grading discussions. Departments can team-up to manage
files and ensure that subjects are being taught consistently across all
schools. Nearly 20 principals, assistant principals and administrative staff
used to travel to meet with each other once a week for several hours; now they
meet once a month and use Novell Teaming to collaborate online and participate
in conference calls. This has not only reduced travel costs, but it has also
increased efficiency and security by allowing administrators to remain in
their schools while working directly with students and staff.
Beech Grove City Schools
With a limited budget and rising travel costs, Beech Grove City Schools of
Indianapolis turned to Novell Teaming to provide teachers a virtual workspace
to collaborate on projects on their own time, without the constraints of
scheduled meetings. This allows teachers to remain in their classrooms, reduce
time and travel expenses, and still work with teachers throughout the schools'
disparate locations. Bringing the benefits of social networking to an
educational environment enables users already familiar with social networking
to collaborate in teams and reduces the time teachers spend in meetings or
traveling to other locations.
Tuscaloosa City School District
Using Novell Teaming, Tuscaloosa, Alabama City School District created online
workspaces where 1,300 teachers and staff can share documents, coordinate
tasks and discuss ideas via forums, wikis and blogs. Performing curriculum
reviews or jointly editing documents, which previously could take months, has
been reduced to a matter of days now that all team members can log-in at any
time to review and approve materials. Additionally, the district was able to
improve the sharing of information within its Academic Transfer System (ATS),
which involves students that are placed in alternative education programs.
Novell Teaming allowed the school district to set up secure team workspaces so
that home school teachers can collaborate with alternative instructors quickly
and easily, including the distributing and grading of assignments. With Novell
Teaming in place, Tuscaloosa's ATS program is operating more efficiently and
productively and has already made a positive impact on student success rates.
The inherent security features of Novell Teaming also help the program comply
with Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) regulations ensuring
that teachers, and soon students, can collaborate in a secure and safe social
networking environment.
To learn more about Novell collaboration solutions, including Novell Teaming,
visit: http://www.novell.com/solutions/collaboration/.
About Novell
Novell, Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL) delivers the best engineered, most interoperable
Linux* platform and a portfolio of integrated IT management software that
helps customers around the world reduce cost, complexity and risk. With our
infrastructure software and ecosystem of partnerships, Novell harmoniously
integrates mixed IT environments, allowing people and technology to work as
one. For more information, visit www.novell.com.
Novell is a registered trademark of Novell, Inc. in the United States and
other countries. *All third-party trademarks are the property of their
respective owners.
SOURCE Novell, Inc.
Kerry Adorno of Novell, +1-781-464-8042, kadorno@novell.com, or Kristin
Conforti of PAN Communications, +1-978-474-1900, novell@pancomm.com, for
Novell
