NEW YORK, NY and PALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwire - Sep 25, 2012) - 10gen (the MongoDB company) today announced that it will offer free online MongoDB training courses starting in October. Under the new 10gen Education program, 10gen's instructors will teach a series of courses designed to reach hundreds of thousands of software developers interested in learning how to use the agile, scalable MongoDB platform as the foundation for building new applications. This program will help advance the skills of developers and administrators working with MongoDB, the world's most popular NoSQL database.

Richard Kreuter, lead consulting engineer, and Andrew Erlichson, vice president of education, will teach M101, MongoDB for Developers. 10gen CEO, Co-Founder and lead MongoDB developer Dwight Merriman will teach M102, MongoDB for DBAs. Students may now register at education.10gen.com, with classes to begin in October.

10gen has entered into a technology collaboration with edX, the not-for-profit online learning collaborative founded by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Under the collaboration, 10gen and edX will collaborate on software and technology for online learning.

Click to Tweet: 10gen democratizes MongoDB training--free online courses in October. Follow @mongodb for updates. #edX, #MOOC, #nosql, #bigdata

Massive open online courses are a new breed of online learning that has emerged over the past year and feature highly interactive pedagogical techniques that have transformed the experience of traditional web-based training. A select group of the nation's top universities are pioneering MOOCs, with early courses on technical topics drawing mass participants worldwide that could never be reached through a physical classroom.

"Teaching MongoDB online through the innovative MOOC format allows us to make our best instructors available to users worldwide," said Andrew Erlichson, vice president, education at 10gen. "Offering online classes is a natural fit with our open source approach and a logical extension to the dozens of MongoDB events we hold around the world each year."

10gen Education will provide in-demand technical training to a global audience at no cost -- at a time when unemployment rates are high in many parts of the world while demand for skilled MongoDB developers continues to accelerate. The new program democratizes MongoDB training by making it possible to teach hundreds of thousands of people online successfully.

The 10gen MOOCs will be grounded in highly interactive content combined with hands-on practical assignments to provide a positive and rich learning experience. Each course will be delivered in consumable video chunks with interactive quizzes and other built-in activities to ensure the participant remains engaged and on track with his or her progress.

Supporting Quotes:

"Education at our universities and in the workplace is undergoing an exciting transformation as instructors are tapping into the power of the internet and new collaborative techniques that revolutionize distance learning," said Anant Agarwal, president and first professor at edX. "We are pleased to team with MongoDB on its new 10gen Education program worldwide. edX utilizes MongoDB and our new collaboration is the natural evolution of our relationship with 10gen."

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10gen to Offer Free MongoDB Training Online

CHARLES TOWN, W.Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

American Public Education, Inc. (APEI) parent company of online learning provider American Public University System, which operates through American Military University and American Public University plans to release third quarter 2012 results before the open of U.S. financial markets on November 8, 2012.

A live webcast of its third quarter 2012 earnings conference call will be broadcast at 9:00 a.m. Eastern time on Thursday, November 8, 2012. This call will be open to listeners through the webcast section of the Company's investor relations website, http://www.AmericanPublicEducation.com. A replay of the live webcast will also be available starting approximately one hour after the conclusion of the live conference call. The replay will be archived and available to listeners for one year.

Webcast: http://www.americanpubliceducation.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=214618&p=irol-presentations

American Public Education, Inc.

American Public Education, Inc. (APEI) is an online provider of higher education focused primarily on serving the military and public service communities. American Public University System (APUS), wholly owned by APEI, operates through American Military University (AMU) and American Public University (APU). APUS serves more than 100,000 adult learners worldwide and offers 87 degree programs in fields ranging from homeland security, military studies, intelligence, and criminal justice to technology, business administration, public health, and liberal arts. Nationally recognized for its best practices in online higher education, APUS provides an affordable education through classes taught by experienced faculty who are leaders in their fields and committed to the academic achievement of their students.

American Public University System is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission and is a member of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (www.ncahlc.org). For more information about APUS graduation rates, median debt of students who completed programs, and other important information, visit http://www.apus.edu/disclosure.

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American Public Education to Webcast Third Quarter 2012 Results Conference Call

Several online education platforms that provide free course content from a host of partner universities, including Stanford, Harvard and Princeton, have exploded in global popularity over the past year. Even with its own long-established programs, Yale has refrained thus far from joining those new ventures.

Now, administrators plan to reexamine how the University approaches online course offerings. On Friday, Yale College Dean Mary Miller announced the formation of a committee on online education in an email to faculty members. Committee members will consider the future of Yales online courses by analyzing national trends and collecting feedback on the Universitys current offerings: Open Yale Courses and Yale Summer Session Online.

Given what is happening around the country, I hope that the committee can explore whether there are ways to continue to expand the number of students around the country and the world who could benefit from the outstanding teaching of Yale faculty without diminishing the experience for our matriculated Yale College students or diverting the efforts of the faculty, Miller wrote in the Friday email.

Psychology professor and committee co-chair Paul Bloom said he hopes its members, who met for the first time on Friday afternoon, can submit recommendations to Miller by the end of 2012. Music professor Craig Wright, Blooms fellow co-chair, said the committee will discuss a variety of new options for digital education at Yale, including partnerships with existing online education platforms and an expansion of online for-credit courses to the academic year.

Outgoing University President Richard Levin told the News in August that online education policy will be one of the biggest challenges faced by his successor. In advance of that transition, the new committee will attempt to determine what direction Yale will take moving forward.

Online teaching is getting very big and important, Bloom said. [The future of online education at Yale] is a hard problem and the answer is not obvious. We are considering everything we can consider.

NEW PLATFORMS EMERGE

One online education hub that has garnered significant media attention is Coursera, an interactive online education platform that offers free massive online open courses (MOOCs) from many universities and reached 1.3 million globally since launching six months ago. Coursera, which was named one of Time Magazines Best 50 Websites in 2012, announced last Wednesday an expansion from 16 international partner institutions to 33, including Brown, Columbia, Penn and Princeton.

Daphne Koller, Coursera co-founder and a computer science professor at Stanford, said the increasing demand for higher education worldwide and the sites ability to share technology among universities will help the start-up to keep growing. She said Courseras model provides benefits not possible through Yales individual school format, including the opportunity to collaborate with other universities about course content and technological advances in digital education.

We are at a point where the technology is really right and mature enough that we can provide a high quality education through an electronic medium, Koller explained. Universities gain a tremendous amount from the ability to interact with peer institutions in a changing [online space].

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Yale reexamines role in online education

Courtesy of roveracademy.com

While UR maintains its commitment to the residential college feel at least on the undergraduate level, URs School of Nursing has embraced the trend of online education and plans to expand online offerings in a model that UR President Joel Seligman praised in his Annual Report to the University community given to the UR Faculty Senate last week.

Our School of Nursing has been the leader at our University in developing a significant online curriculum, he said in the address on Tuesday, Sept. 11.

The School of Nursing has been offering online learning for about a decade, beginning with elective courses such as physiology and anatomy basic courses needed to start a nursing degree. The school currently offers five of these prerequisite courses for a Bachelor of Science degree solely online.

About a year after they started offering these classes, the school began building what are now called hybrid online degree programs and now offers two: the Family Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program and the Registered Nurse to Bachelor of Science completion program. The school also offers 44 other hybrid online courses with required in-class and online components. It plans to launch two new hybrid online programs by 2015: a Leadership in Health Care Systems program and a Doctor of Nursing Practice program.

Dean of the School of Nursing Kathy Rideout said that while the prerequisite courses have minimal interaction with faculty and are entirely self-directed, the hybrid online programs are restricted to a small number of students to maintain a high quality of education.

Faculty and student interaction is critical, Rideout said, adding that it is also vital to maintain the same rigor in the course when it is taught online, while catering to the need for convenience.

Despite the success of the School of Nursings programs 41 percent of the curriculum is currently offered online and online education provides 26 percent of the School of Nursing tuition revenue it remains unclear if this model can and will be extrapolated to other schools within the University or if this success might uniquely pertain to the School of Nursing.

It reflects more our profession of nursing more than our University, Rideout said.

Before launching the online curriculum, the School of Nursing solicited student feedback and ascertained that students wanted the online curriculum because most work full-time.

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Seligman weighs state, future of online learning

At 3 a.m. on Wednesday, Columbia opened registration for its first two massive open online courses.

The University is offering the two coursesFinancial Engineering and Risk Management, and Natural Language Processingthrough Coursera, an online education platform founded by Stanford University professors Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng last year. Its Columbias first major venture into the online education market in a decade.

Were doing a pilot program in the MOOC stagemassive open online courseand the idea there is to see the potential of the MOOC stage for education, said Sree Sreenivasan, who was appointed Columbias first chief digital officer in July. What Im trying to do in my position is to help see whats working, try new things, and to expand and enhance what weve already done and built at Columbia.

Sreenivasan said that several Columbia schools, including the School of Continuing Education, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the School of Journalism, and Teachers College, have had assorted online education offerings for years. But this is the first time Columbia is offering courses that are free and open to anyone in the world with Internet access.

Both courses will begin on Feb. 11, 2013, and run for 10 weeks. According to descriptions on Courseras website, the workload for each course will be eight to 10 hours per week. Industrial engineering and operations research professors Garud Iyengar and Martin Haugh will teach Financial Engineering and Risk Management, and computer science professor Michael Collins will teach Natural Language Processing.

The plan is to give people a broad introduction into the method of financial engineering and risk management and option pricing for portfolio optimization and also a healthy degree of skepticism, Haugh said of his course. Obviously, these models have come under a lot of criticism in the last few years ... so we hope to address some of these issues as well.

Thirty-three schoolsincluding the California Institute of Technology, Duke University, and Princeton Universitycurrently offer or are planning to offer classes on Coursera. The more than one million people who have enrolled in the sites courses are expected to pay attention during video lectures interspersed with interactive exercises and complete homework assignments in between lectures.

Kyle Rego, SEAS 13, called Columbias new online courses a fantastic opportunity, noting that he is currently enrolled in the in-person version of Natural Language Processing.

If I didnt have the opportunity to go to Columbia I would definitely take a course online, he said. I could easily see other people wanting to.

For free, this is amazing, he added.

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University trying hand at online education

LEAWOOD, Kan.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

ATI Nursing Education, the leading provider of online nurse education programs, today announced the nationwide launch of Nurses Touch, the industrys first online education program focusing exclusively on developing professional and interpersonal skills in nurses.

The Nurses Touch product line was developed in direct response to a significant industry need for stronger interpersonal -- or soft skills -- such as communications, technology, management, etc., among professional nurses. Earlier this year, ATI Nursing Education commissioned a nationwide survey of practicing nurses, nurse managers, and recent hospital inpatients and those accompanying them to gauge proficiency in these skills. The survey results demonstrated a significant gap between nurse skills, hiring demands and patient experience.

Specifically, nearly all (98 percent) of practicing nurses surveyed reported wanting more training in interpersonal skills. More than 80 percent of the nurse managers reported that they seek graduates with professional and interpersonal skills when hiring. This gap in interpersonal skills and education is also reflected in patient satisfaction, with 66 percent of inpatients or those accompanying them reflecting that their experiences could have been improved with better communication with nurses.

Todays nursing professional is being asked to do much, much more than just administer treatment, said Sheryl Sommer, Ph, RN, and director of Nursing Education and Curriculum at ATI Nursing Education. He or she is expected to work and communicate well with colleagues and patients, offer sound judgment, solve problems, and maneuver seamlessly through the world of electronic medical records and other technology facets. Clearly these aspects of the nursing role require a host of new skills, and Nurses Touch was developed in response to this dynamic environment.

ATI Nursing Educations Nurses Touch product line encompasses five key content areas professional communication, wellness and self-care, becoming a professional nurse, nursing informatics and technology, and leadership and management all areas which help develop interpersonal skills on the job. Like all ATI Nursing Education programs, the product suite uses the latest and most-effective learning tools, such as interactive simulators, tutorials, case studies and practice and proctored assessments.

Nurses Touch also allows educators to assess and track students progress. In addition to measuring student growth, this reporting information can provide supporting evidence in accreditation documentation.

For more information, please visit http://www.atinursestouch.com.

About ATI Nursing Education

ATI Nursing Education is the leading provider of online learning programs that are instrumental in improving faculty effectiveness and student and program outcomes in nursing schools across the country. Currently the company works with more than 20,000 nurse educators, approximately 2,100 colleges and universities nationwide, and more than 225,000 students. ATI Nursing Education has played a role in helping more than 1 million students pass the NCLEX, the U.S. nursing licensing exam. ATI Nursing Education is part of Ascend Learning. Founded in 2010, Ascend Learning provides technology-based educational, curriculum and assessment solutions for healthcare and other professional industries. For more information, visit http://www.ascendlearning.com/companies/atinursing/.

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ATI Nursing Education Launches Industry’s First Online Professional and Interpersonal Skills Education Product

Results from the reputational surveys of online degree programs may be incorporated in the new rankings.

U.S. Newsis going full speed ahead ondata collectionfor the upcomingTop Online Education Programsrankings to be published in early 2013. New this year is our first attempt to do a reputational survey for all online degree programs we are surveying: bachelor's degrees, and master's degrees inbusiness,computer information technology,education,engineering, andnursing.

Schools that were ranked or too new to be ranked in theU.S. News2012 Top Online Programs rankings received postcards last week soliciting their participation. The online reputation survey questionnaire asks respondents to rate the overall excellence of other schools' online degree programs on a 1-5 scale.

The results, which we hope can be incorporated in the upcoming rankings, aim to provideU.S. Newsand our readers valuable insight regarding how programs are viewed by experts in the field, and may also account for measures of program quality that are not fully encapsulated through the statistical questionnaires currently being completed.

The deadline for schools to submit the statistical surveys is close of business this Friday, September 21. Those who need extra time should request an extension from the data collector listed in the E-mail they received fromU.S. News, or fromdtolis@usnews.com.

Survey recipients may have noticed significant changes to the questionnaires since last year. This is becauseU.S. Newsincorporated input from stakeholders since publishing the inaugural 2012 rankings. As a result, this year's surveys had more detailed instructions on how schools can report on their online education cohorts, and asked questions in ways more consistent with how programs already collect and report data on these students.

Feedback on the surveys andrankings methodologiescame from one-on-one interviews with ranked and unranked programs from each academic discipline; a webinar facilitated byEmbanetCompassthat was attended by a multitude of its members that offer online degrees; and a survey of 47 anonymous online education academics in collaboration withWCET.

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U.S. News Launches New Reputation Surveys for Online Education Programs

MINNEAPOLIS, Sept. 19, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --SOPHIA, the online education platform that currently offers 25,000 free tutorials to teachers and students, is launching a new college-level online learning program that will enable students to complete their college degree sooner at a fraction of the cost of traditional higher education fees.

The program was created to expand access to post secondary education and provide affordable options, which is particularly important due to the fact that student debt now totals more than $1 trillion, surpassing credit card debt for the first time in our nation's history.

SOPHIA Pathways for College Credit (SPCC) is a 60-day, assessment-based program that can be started at any time. By successfully demonstrating college-level mastery, students may earn college credit with partnering higher education institutions.

SPCC initially will be offered in College Algebra, Psychology, Human Biology, Statistics and Sociology. Four additional pathways will be added by February 2013. Capella University is the first university to partner with SOPHIA to offer SPCC.

Students enrolled in SPCC learn at their own pace from any Internet connection on a computer, tablet or smart phone. Concepts within each pathway are taught by multiple teachers using a variety of multimedia elements, providing students with many ways to learn. All instruction materials are included online, which further increases the affordability of SPCC.

SPCC was developed by SOPHIA.org, a first-of-its-kind social education platform that offers students many ways to learn by providing 25,000 free academic tutorials taught in a variety of ways, by a multitude of teachers and education enthusiasts. SPCC is the latest innovation by SOPHIA, which is focused on making credible academic tools available to students at the college level and in the years leading up to post-secondary education.

"SOPHIA currently delivers free online educational content that is unlike anything on the market today," said Allison Gage, Senior Vice President, Business Strategy for SOPHIA. "In addition to providing students with many ways to learn by offering multiple tutorials on the same topic taught by different teachers, we have further expanded opportunities to earn college credit at a fraction of the cost of traditional programs. SPCC furthers our goal of making high quality education at all levels accessible and affordable."

Capella University first to offer SPCC

Capella University, an accredited online university* that has built its reputation by providing high quality online degree programs for working adults, is currently offering an articulation for five SPCC pathways at a cost of $329 per pathway. Students who successfully complete an SPCC pathway will earn six college-level quarter credits through Capella's prior learning assessment process.

"Considering that the average college graduate has $27,000 in student loan debt, it is imperative that we develop affordable options that will enable students to earn their college degree," said Scott Kinney, president of Capella University. "SPCC will significantly reduce the cost of higher education. In fact, students who complete the full nine courses through our program will save up to $10,000."

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SOPHIA Introduces Pathways For College Credit Making Higher Education Flexible And Affordable

MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Capella Education Company (CPLA), a provider of online post-secondary education, primarily through its wholly owned subsidiary Capella University, today announced that it will release third quarter 2012 financial results before the open of the market on Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2012. A live conference call and Webcast discussing third quarter results is scheduled for the same day at 9:00 a.m. eastern time (ET).

To participate in the live call, investors should dial 866.385.4179 (domestic) or 702.928.7882 (international) at 8:50 a.m. (ET) and provide conference ID# 32477833. The Webcast will be available on the Capella Education Company web site at http://www.capellaeducation.com.

A replay of the call will be available starting on Oct. 23, 2012, through Oct. 30, 2012, at 855.859.2056 (domestic) or 404.537.3406 (international), conference ID# 32477833. It will also be archived at http://www.capellaeducation.com in the investor relations section for 60 days.

About Capella Education Company

Founded in 1991, Capella Education Company is a leader in online education, primarily through our wholly owned subsidiary Capella University, a regionally accredited* online university. In addition, Capella Education Company offers online education through Resource Development International Ltd. (RDI), an independent provider of United Kingdom (UK) university distance learning qualifications. Capella Education Company also owns an innovative startup company called Sophia (http://www.sophia.org) - a social teaching and learning platform that integrates education with technology.

Capella University offers online graduate degree programs in business, counseling, education, health administration, homeland security, human resource management, human services, information technology, nonprofit management and leadership, nursing, psychology, public administration, public health, public safety, and social work, and bachelor's degree programs in business, information technology, nursing, psychology, and public safety. These academic programs are designed to meet the needs of working adults, combining high quality, competency-based curricula with the convenience and flexibility of an online learning format. Currently, Capella University offers 44 graduate and undergraduate degree programs with 149 specializations. More than 36,000 learners were enrolled as of June 30, 2012, with about 75 percent of learners enrolled in graduate degree programs. For more information about Capella Education Company, please visit http://www.capellaeducation.com. For more information about Capella University, please visit http://www.capella.edu or call 1.888.CAPELLA (227.3552).

Resource Development International Ltd. partners with a number of the top 100 universities in the UK to develop, validate and deliver UK higher education qualifications, predominantly through online courses. For more information, visit http://www.rdi.co.uk.

Sophia is a first-of-its-kind social education platform that offers students many ways to learn by making free, credible, academic content available to anyone, anywhere, at anytime. The site offers tens of thousands of tutorials created by hundreds of teachers and experts that are taught in a variety of ways. The platform further enhances the learning process by offering quizzes, assessing learning preferences and providing learning paths. For more information, visit http://www.sophia.org.

*Capella University is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission and is a member of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (NCA), http://www.ncahlc.org. Capella University, Capella Tower, 225 South Sixth Street, Ninth Floor, Minneapolis, MN 55402, 1.888.CAPELLA (227.3552), http://www.capella.edu.

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Capella Education Company to Report Third Quarter 2012 Results on Oct. 23, 2012

SCRANTON, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Penn Foster, Inc., a global leader in online education with over 150,000 students, today announced that it was named a Military Friendly School for 2013 by G.I. Jobs Magazine. Penn Foster is ranked in the top 15% of all colleges, universities and trade schools nationwide. Now in its fourth year, the 2013 list of Military Friendly Schools was compiled through extensive research and a data-driven survey of more than 12,000 VA-approved schools nationwide. The survey results that comprise the 2013 list were independently tested by Ernst & Young LLP based upon the weightings and methodology established by G.I. Jobs.

Penn Foster's relationship with our country's military is extensive and significant and it is an honor for us to be named, said Frank Britt, CEO of Penn Foster. We strongly believe in the importance of education for those serving our country and believe we bring unique value in providing accelerated online programs, specialized military services, and education and training benefits for military personnel and their families.

Penn Foster first donated its curricula to the U.S. Marine Corps over ninety years ago to help launch the Marine Corps Institute (MCI). Still in operation today, MCI facilitates the training and education of individual Marines through online learning. Today, Penn Foster provides the Army Corps of Engineers with apprenticeship training at numerous military installations throughout the U.S.

Penn Fosters Specialized Military Service Program

Penn Fosters online programs allow service members to enroll at any time and study wherever the military service takes them. The flexible online format enables students to progress through the program as quickly as they feel comfortable and many complete in less than a year. Some of the unique benefits of Penn Fosters military service program include: an entire team of educational advisors dedicated solely to helping students achieve a rewarding career in civilian life, accreditation and licensing to provide the online programs that military students need and expertise around specific military education benefits such as:

Through the long-standing relationship with the countrys military, Penn Foster is not only able to help service members when it comes to schooling but also their families. By being MyCAA approved and funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, Penn Foster has been approved to accept the financial assistance, up to $4000 for military spouses who are pursuing degree programs, licenses or credentials that lead to employment in portable career fields. This combined with the tuition assistance programs lead students to a clear path for debt free education, especially since Penn Foster college courses are five times below the per credit costs of most community colleges and half the cost of other online schools. Military spouses are required to finish their program of study within three years from the start date of the first course, and qualifying education credentials are limited to associate degrees, certifications and licensures. Penn Foster is dedicated to helping our military find funding programs that are available to them and we want to provide them with a flexible and affordable education solution that works for them and their families, continued Britt.

About Penn Foster

Penn Foster is a global leader in online education, providing high school diplomas, career-focused degree and vocational programs in the fields of allied health, business, technology, education, and select trades. Penn Foster has a rich history in distance learning, tracing back to their roots as the International Correspondence School in 1890. The institution today, comprised of Penn Foster High School, the largest high school in the United States; Penn Foster College and Penn Foster Career School, graduates 25,000 annually, and has always been dedicated to educating and training America's working population.

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Penn Foster College Named Military Friendly School for 2013