The Wharton School Chooses Centra to Make Executive MBA Program `Bi-Coastal' through Live eLearning and Collaboration

Business Wire, Oct 22, 2001

Business/Technology Editors

LEXINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 22, 2001

Nation's Leading Business School Expands Reach to Remote Students with Interactive Online Courses LEXINGTON, MA (October 22, 2001) - Centra (NASDAQ: CTRA), the world's leading provider of software infrastructure and ASP services for eLearning and business collaboration, today announced that The Wharton School's Executive MBA Program (WEMBA) has selected Centra to augment their campus-based programs with live online classes and "virtual office hours" to address the needs of a growing West Coast student population. With home campus facilities in both Philadelphia and San Francisco, Wharton will employ Centra Symposium(TM), Centra's Web-based classroom interface featuring integrated voice-over-IP and easy-to-use tools that enable group interactivity, to make portions of its existing WEMBA curriculum available to West Coast students online.

Extending the reach of MBA programs conducted at Wharton's University of Pennsylvania campus, the unique WEMBA program shares a common faculty and curriculum with a growing San Francisco-based student population at the school's new "Wharton West" campus. Through a mix of traditional and virtual classroom instruction, the two-year program aims to provide high-potential, working professionals on both Coasts with the value of a full-time Wharton MBA education. In addition to real-time virtual classes on Centra, Wharton incorporates physical classroom instruction on alternate weekends and in two, week-long summer sessions. To complete the WEMBA program, students based in San Francisco have the option of spending a semester at Wharton's Philadelphia campus. Likewise, Philadelphia-based students have the opportunity to study at Wharton West.

"Centra Symposium represents an integral part of our Wharton Executive MBA program," said Gerry McCartney, Associate Dean and CIO of The Wharton School. "With our new Wharton West Campus, students who need mentoring or software training are not always in the same physical space as their instructors. Whether it's virtual office hours, hand-on application training, or classes delivered online, Centra extends Wharton's physical classrooms by bringing our geographically dispersed students together with professors in an easily accessible online learning environment."

The Wharton School is known for its innovative use of collaboration tools, including Wharton's WebCafe collaboration workspace and CyberExchange "global classroom" in partnership with INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France. The Wharton Computing and Information Technology group recommended Centra as a solution for the WEMBA Program after assessing a wide range of Web-based collaboration vendors. The selection was based on criteria that included integrated multi-way audio conferencing that eliminated the need for a separate phone line, robust application sharing, integrated video conferencing, whiteboard capabilities and full functionality over low bandwidth dial-up connections.

Software Infrastructure for eLearning and Collaboration

Used by more than 675 companies, government agencies, and universities worldwide, Centra's enterprise products and services leverage the core capabilities of the Web-based CentraOne platform. Today, Centra is the only company to offer a full range of knowledge delivery and management solutions - from voice-enabled virtual classrooms, Web conferences and online meetings to powerful products for content management, personalized eLearning, and standards-compliant authoring - all on a single platform. Through this integrated environment, organizations can increase the overall effectiveness of their eLearning initiatives, targeting the appropriate mix of live and self-paced learning formats and activities for each audience or strategic business task.

According to Joyce Bokuniewicz, Centra's Director of Higher Education Programs, "We are seeing a trend to virtual classrooms in higher education as a way to increase revenues. The Wharton School exemplifies what Universities can do to extend the reach of their traditional campus-based programs without compromising education quality."

About The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania is recognized around the world for its academic strengths across every major discipline and at every level of business education. Founded in 1881 as the first collegiate business school in the nation, Wharton has approximately 4,600 undergraduate, MBA and doctoral students, more than 8,000 participants in its executive education programs annually, and an alumni network of more than 75,000 worldwide. In addition, Wharton has nearly 250 standing and associated faculty, 11 academic departments, and 17 research centers. For more information, visit www.wharton.upenn.edu.

About Centra

With more than 1.7 million users, Centra is the world's leading provider of software infrastructure and ASP services for eLearning and business collaboration. Today hundreds of global organizations have standardized on Centra for the delivery of live eLearning, including Accenture, Century 21, Domino's Pizza, EMC Corporation, McKessonHBOC, Nationwide Insurance, Siemens, Stanford University, and Procter & Gamble. Centra supports a vital ecosystem of strategic eLearning partnerships, which include alliances with Microsoft, PricewaterhouseCoopers, EDS, Cisco, Oracle, HP Europe, Deloitte Consulting, Saba, and Docent. Headquartered in Boston's technology corridor, the Company has sales offices throughout North America, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.centra.com.