THINQ Leads Government E-learning Market With 52 High-profile Accounts

Business Wire, May 20, 2002

Business/Technology Editors

BILLERICA, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 20, 2002

Navy, Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease

Control and others improve employee performance with THINQ solutions

THINQ Learning Solutions, Inc., a leading provider of enterprise learning solutions, has solidified its leadership in the government sector by managing online and classroom learning for 52 local, state and federal government agencies. These agencies, which include the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, use THINQ's proven e-learning solutions to quickly achieve their organizational goals, attract and develop qualified personnel, and respond to continuous change. THINQ's unsurpassed learning management capabilities also help customers contend with urgent training needs, tight budgets and dynamic work environments.

The Chief of Naval Education and Training (CNET), for example, last year selected THINQ to power Navy E-Learning for more than 1.2 million members of the Department of the Navy, including sailors, retirees, reservists, and family members enrolled in the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS). In April 2002, CNET extended its use of the THINQ TrainingServer(R) Learning Management System (LMS) to ships, submarines, Navy schoolhouses and classified networks around the world.

"THINQ's extensive list of federal, state, and local government clients is a testament to the company's scalability in terms of both the number of users its technology can address and the varied efficiencies it can help organizations achieve," said IDC senior analyst Michael Brennan. "Demonstrating the ability of learning technology to improve internal operations and public service delivery should act as an impetus for further adoption of e-learning."

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is using a THINQ-powered Internet learning portal called DL\net to lower training and administrative costs and make training accessible to all its 65,000 employees across 11 agencies. Through this single entry point, HHS agencies satisfy common learning needs and provide online collaboration between employees with similar interests and concerns. The portal offers employees access to in-house HHS training courses, several training vendors' course libraries to supplement the HHS curriculum, and links to online learning resources at other government agencies.

THINQ is part of an e-learning consortium known as FasTrac (www.fba.satx.disa.mil), a collaborative program managed by a Federal/Department of Defense (DOD) agency to maximize federal organizations' return on their training investments. Through standard contracts, rapid procurement, economies of scale, flexible deployment options and a true learning community sharing best practices, FasTrac helps government organizations bring e-learning to their employees. FasTrac members include "best of breed" learning solution vendors that must meet strict requirements as government suppliers. FasTrac supports 400,000 government employees in 58 federal organizations, including the U.S. Navy and its 1.2 million learners. THINQ is the sole LMS provider to FasTrac. The program's government-to-government contract vehicles can be leveraged by all federal organizations (both civil and defense), and is available through the U.S. Department of Treasury's Franchise Business Activity (FBA), Global Services.

The THINQ LMS also adheres to the SCORM(TM) e-learning content standard, a government-backed Internet specification for universal e-learning content portability, and it is certified under the AICC requirements.

THINQ builds expansive customer roster

In addition to the Navy and HHS, THINQ's federal customers include the Department of Labor, USDA Graduate School, Department of Education, Department of Transportation, FDIC, Fannie Mae, Neighborhood Reinvestment Corp., Department of the Treasury and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, among others. THINQ's state and local customers include the Arizona Supreme Court; California's Department of Personnel Administration, Employment Development Department and Department of Justice; the University of California, San Diego; Palm Beach (Fla.) County Sheriff's Office; plus county and regional transit authorities, public works departments, and health and human services agencies.

THINQ-powered e-learning pays for itself and stretches taxpayer dollars in a number of ways. By helping government agencies save travel costs through online learning, and by tracking all learning events and performance records, agencies can analyze their online and classroom training programs to efficiently maximize resources and increase return on investment. THINQ solutions help state, local and federal agencies more effectively communicate about learning resources and information by allowing cross-agency collaboration and sharing. Moreover, offering e-learning acts as a competitive advantage in their ongoing efforts to attract and retain qualified workers.