OnCourse Systems for Education Announces Significant Enhancements to its OnCourse Lesson Planner

WASHINGTON and GIBBSTOWN, N.J., June 29 /PRNewswire/ -- National Educational Computing Conference, booth # 3154 -- OnCourse Systems for Education, a provider of award-winning, web-based tools that streamline and automate educational processes for public and private school districts, today announced that it has made significant enhancements to its OnCourse Lesson Planner solution for the 2009-2010 school year.

"We have listened closely to the teachers and administrators using Lesson Planner and have added and enhanced the features that have been requested the most," said Georgia Gallicchio, chief marketing officer at OnCourse Systems. "The new Curriculum Portal that provides school districts with a way to safely store and distribute curriculum materials has been very well received. Also, the ability to prioritize standards is new feature our users have requested."

Offered through a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, the new enhancements are part of the annual subscription fee. SaaS provides a predictable, upfront cost and only requires an Internet connection, eliminating the need for school districts to maintain and update the software in-house. Available in August 2009, the new version of Lesson Planner offers the following new or enhanced features:

• Curriculum Portal - This optional module can be used by school districts to safely store and distribute curriculum materials. With its integrated security system, users can securely and easily grant access to curriculum documents via an intuitive user interface. It also features a built-in version control system.
• Power Standards - Administrators and Curriculum Coordinators can designate "power standards" so that teachers can focus on standards that are most important.
• Student Standards Reporting - By using Lesson Planner in conjunction with OnCourse Student Stats, reports detailing the standards taught to a particular student for a specified date range can be generated.
• Class Section Based Reporting - Teachers are able to specify what classes a particular lesson is for and run reports that detail standards taught by the class section level. Lesson Planner's scope and sequence feature also allows teachers to select particular class sections.
• User Interface Enhancements - Teachers can now further customize the setup of their planner and take advantage of the increased speed of entering lesson plans online.
• Enhanced Calendars - The new interface for the calendars provides greater flexibility for the user in scheduling of events.

About OnCourse Systems for Education

OnCourse Systems for Education is a provider of web-based, enterprise wide k-12 technology solutions that streamline and automate educational processes for teachers and administrators in public and private school districts. OnCourse's award-winning line of intuitive tools has been designed to enhance communication and collaboration and has resulted in high usage rates among teachers, administrators, students and parents. OnCourse Lesson Planner, a web-based tool that automates the creation, management and sharing of lesson plans, has more than 100,000 users nationwide and has received the Association of Educational Publishers' Distinguished Achievement Award and ComputED's Best Educational Software Awards (BESSIES). Its other online solutions include OnCourse Student Information System (SIS), OnCourse Grade Book, OnCourse Student Stats and OnCourse Discipline System, winner of Scholastic Administr@tor's Best in Tech awards. Founded in 2002, OnCourse is headquartered in Gibbstown, N.J. For more information on the company, visit www.oncoursesystems.com.

    Contact:
    Karen Higgins
    Sagefrog Marketing
    (610) 831-5723
    karenh@sagefrog.com

SOURCE: OnCourse Systems for Education

Web site: http://www.oncoursesystems.com/