NETg Named "Best Online Corporate Training Content Provider"; NETg Receives Prestigious Codie Award From the Software & Information Industry Association

Business Wire, May 2, 2002

Business/Technology Editors

NAPERVILLE, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 2, 2002

NETg, a worldwide leader in corporate education and training and part of The Thomson Corporation (TSE:TOC), today announced it has received the 17th Annual Codie Award for "Best Online Corporate Training Content Provider," presented by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) at its annual awards banquet in San Diego, CA. As the only peer-reviewed award of its kind, the Codie award honored NETg for its high-quality instructional content and rich scenario-based assessments that tailor and personalize learning according to the unique styles, skills, and preferences of the learner.

"We are extremely pleased to be the recipient of this major industry award," said Joe Dougherty, president of NETg. "This award further validates for businesses worldwide the strength and quality of NETg's robust learning solution offering, and the impact that successful learning has on corporate leadership and business performance."

Ken Wasch, president of SIIA, commented: "At SIIA, we recognize that quality corporate training is playing a critical role in helping companies achieve business success. NETg is clearly a leader in this category, and we are proud to include NETg in this year's roster of awards."

Global corporations select NETg learning solutions because of the combination of quality content and flexible delivery. "Large corporations require learning programs that are nimble enough to satisfy the skill and knowledge needs for large, multicultural employee populations as well for small communities of highly specialized employees," said Adam Newman, Director, Research Group for Eduventures. "The NETg learning object architecture represents a very adaptable approach to delivering interactive, simulation-based learning to diverse employee groups."

NETg's feature-rich courseware includes over 2,000 IT and business and professional development titles ranging from strategic business planning to Microsoft Office 2000 to client/server development tools to Web design. Based on proven instructional design principles, NETg courses combine highly interactive, real business world learning scenarios and assessments to ensure skills transfer, along with access to expertly trained mentors to guide the learning process. Courses take full advantage of multiple delivery methods to accommodate different learning styles, and are available in a variety of languages to serve employees around the world. Built on NETg's flexible learning object architecture (NLO ), NETg learning solutions allow users to develop targeted courses and personalized learning paths by adding, removing, combining, reorganizing, and modifying content from a vast library of learning objects.

The SIIA's 17th Annual Codie Award program attracted more than 700 product nominations from over 300 companies. First-round judging was completed by a broad panel of judges consisting of representatives of the industry trade press, mainstream technology writers, and industry experts. Second-round judging was based on votes from SIIA members, comprising more than 1,200 companies worldwide.

About The Thomson Corporation & NETg

The Thomson Corporation (www.thomson.com), with 2001 revenues of $7.2 billion, is a leading provider of integrated information solutions to business and professional markets worldwide. The corporation's common shares are listed on the Toronto and London stock exchanges (TSE: TOC). Its learning businesses and brands serve the needs of individuals, institutions, and businesses with and blend of products and services tailored to any learning environment. As part of Thomson, NETg (www.netg.com) is a global leader in blended learning with a complete solution of content, technology and services. NETg's offering is comprised of its award-winning e-Learning courseware, Course Technology books, CourseCards and instructor-led training manuals and Wave accelerated IT Boot Camps and self-study kits. For over 30 years NETg has been an innovation leader incorporating Internet deployment and interactivity with over 85,000 learning objects in popular IT, desktop computing and professional development topics.

About SIIA

The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) is the principal trade association for the software and digital content industry. SIIA provides global services in government relations, business development, corporate education and intellectual property protection to more than 800 leading software and information companies. For further information, visit http://www.siia.net.