Chicago State University Delivers Synchronous Content to Distance Education and Blended Learning Environments with Elluminate Live!

Market Wire, March, 2006

Elluminate, Inc., a leading provider of live eLearning and Web collaboration solutions for the real-time organization, announced today that Chicago State University (CSU) has selected Elluminate Live! Academic Version(TM). The university will integrate Elluminate Live! with its Blackboard learning management system and will use the virtual environment to add synchronous content to its distance education program as well as to a number of courses that combine online and onsite sessions.

In 2004, CSU received a grant from the Illinois Board of Higher Education to enable it to collaborate with other institutions for traditional or online classes. The university's initial collaboration was with the University of Illinois at Springfield (UIS), who was already using Elluminate Live! for its online education program. CSU and UIS collaborated on several courses that used both Elluminate Live! and Blackboard, enabling students from different backgrounds, including those in both urban and rural areas, to exchange ideas and work together on group projects. Now entering the second year of the grant, CSU will add Northeastern Illinois University as another collaborative partner.

"Because of the success we had in collaborating with UIS, we pursued obtaining Elluminate Live! for our own campus, not only in the classroom but also for faculty and staff meetings for the university as a whole," explained Julian Scheinbuks, Ph.D. and Director of the Office of Distance Learning at CSU. "We were aware of other products, but Elluminate Live! met our needs. We are now in the process of determining how to make the best use of the opportunities Elluminate Live! provides, alone and in combination with Blackboard."

"We considered a couple of alternatives, but Elluminate Live! offered the most feasible solution and the easiest set up," said CSU Technical Support Specialist Victor Alexander, who is the system administrator for both Elluminate Live! and Blackboard "We have a hosted solution for both products because we don't have the staff required to manage our own servers. The support from Blackboard and Elluminate has been excellent, and I've been impressed with how quickly participants can access and learn to navigate in Elluminate Live! It's very user friendly."

"Elluminate is excited to add Chicago State University to the hundreds of academic institutions who have added synchronous interaction to their online and onsite learning environments," said Maurice Heiblum, president of Elluminate USA, Inc. "Elluminate Live! enables the dynamic collaboration of an instructor-led classroom or face-to-face meeting, encouraging participation and facilitating true learning."

About Chicago State University

On September 2, 1867, Chicago State University opened it doors as a teacher training school in a leaky railroad freight car in Blue Island, Illinois. Today, the university is a fully accredited public, urban institution located on 161 picturesque acres in a residential community in Chicago. During the first year of its founding, CSU enrolled 62 students. The current student enrollment is nearly 7,200. The university's four colleges: Health Science, Arts and Science, Business, and Education offer 36 undergraduate, 19 graduate and 1 doctoral degree-granting program. In addition, CSU has a Division of Continuing Education and Non-Traditional Programs that reach out to the community with extension courses, distance learning, and not-for-credit programs. For more information, visit www.csu.edu .

About Elluminate, Inc.

Elluminate, Inc. provides proven, award-winning solutions for real-time online learning and collaboration that enhance the learning experience, increase retention and completion rates, and remove traditional barriers to knowledge. Delivering best-in-class performance, Elluminate features high-quality VoIP, robust interactive functionality for participants and moderators, and unique No User Left Behind technology regardless of platform or Internet connection speed. Elluminate delivers exceptional outcomes with lower Total Cost of Ownership and higher ROI. Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Elluminate is the trusted choice of prominent corporate and academic organizations such as ADP, DeVry University, Georgia State University, Johns Hopkins University, PA Department of Education, Sun Microsystems, T-Mobile, and many more. For more information, visit www.elluminate.com .

Elluminate Live! is a trademark of Elluminate, Inc., Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Contacts: Brian Bogie Erica Salamida Schwartz Communications (781) 684-0770 elluminate@schwartz-pr.com