THINQ Partners With Johns Hopkins University to Promote Career Transcript System

Business Wire, June 11, 2001

Business/Technology Editors

BILLERICA, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 11, 2001

THINQ and JHU to Offer New Lifelong Career Tracking Program

Targeted to Help Communities Develop Qualified Workforces

THINQ Learning Solutions today announced a partnership with the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) SCANS 2000 Center. JHU's SCANS 2000 Career Transcript System technology and other SCANS training products will be incorporated into the THINQ TrainingServer(R) LMS to provide an online tool for communities to encourage individuals within those communities to gain the skills they need to fill key positions in the local job market.

Using the Career Transcript System, community residents can document their lifelong knowledge and career growth. High schools, community colleges, employers and other organizations provide students with transcripts to help document their skills and experiences, both in school and throughout their careers. Transcripts are built based on evaluations, assessments and certifications of the SCANS skills. Communities can aggregate these transcripts to form a Community Skills Map to attract quality businesses interested in relocating or opening a new office. In turn, community leaders can use the maps as guides for training residents for new, higher-paying jobs.

The SCANS 2000 Computer Based Training (CBT) courses offer essential soft skill topics that THINQ can launch and track through the TrainingServer LMS. The Career Transcript System and CBT programs were built in response to communities everywhere trying to attract quality employers and provide skilled workers to populate those organizations. Now members of the community can document their existing skills, access training to help win jobs and promotions within their own towns, and document progress and skills enhancement throughout their careers.

"This project will provide a pipeline of qualified workers to a market where there is an acute labor shortage," said Dr. Arnie Packer, the center's director and an expert on school-to-work and workforce development issues. "This alliance with THINQ is providing the key technology infrastructure to our initiative that will allow us to make the Career Transcript System a reality."

"A prestigious partner like Johns Hopkins University can make a difference in community workforces across the country," said THINQ COO Ray Maskell. "Playing a part in the development of human capital is an important part of THINQ's mission, and we look forward to expanding our relationship with JHU to provide communities and corporations with the tools they need to help both citizens and employees help themselves."

About the SCANS 2000 Center

The SCANS 2000 Center is an interdisciplinary research group at the Johns Hopkins University Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). SCANS 2000's mission is to create a workforce development system that prepares workers to compete in the international economy of the 21st century. The Center's project arenas include school-to-work programs, welfare-to-work programs, at-risk youth, and dislocated and incumbent worker training. The Secretary of Labor established the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) in 1990. Dr. Packer, who now directs the center, is a former assistant secretary of labor, and the former executive director of this commission.

About THINQ

THINQ helps corporations and government agencies attain key business objectives with an enterprise-wide learning solution designed to improve employee and organizational achievement through effective human capital development. THINQ combines strategic guidance, a scalable Web-based learning management infrastructure, the world's largest aggregation of professional learning content, proven professional services and ongoing onsite success services that help drive learners to improved performance. THINQ combines technology and content by integrating its proven learning management system (LMS), the THINQ TrainingServer(R) LMS, with hundreds of thousands of learning events from the THINQ Learning Center, to offer customers a one stop source for corporate learning requirements. THINQ is a private company headquartered in Billerica, Mass., with operations in the US, Canada and the U.K. For more information, contact THINQ at (888) 931-3311, or visit www.THINQ.com.