• Web-based custom content
• Innovative technology
• Outstanding learning programmes and initiatives

Winners of the 2004 Brandon Hall Excellence in Learning Awards will be announced at a ceremony on 12th October, at the Training and Online Learning Fall Conference and Expo, in San Francisco, California. Winners will also be listed on the Brandon Hall website (www.brandon-hall.com).

The inspiration behind the awards comes from the Awards’ chairman, Dr Brandon Hall. Dr Hall is a US-based independent expert in e-learning, CEO of brandon-hall.com and author of the Web-Based Training Cookbook.

Since 1992 brandon-hall.com has provided independent expert advice on the tools of e-learning: LMS, LCMS, authoring tools, content providers and other tools that help organisations develop successful e-learning solutions.

“It is rare for the judges for these awards to be selected from outside the USA,” commented Sambit Mohapatra, head of TIS in the UK, Europe and the Middle East. “Naturally, we’re delighted that TIS’s global experience and expertise in e-learning development has been recognised in this way.”

About Tata Interactive Systems (TIS)

Tata Interactive Systems (TIS) has one of the world’s largest teams for the design and development of custom-built e-learning solutions. It is part of the Tata group, India’s largest business house, employing over 330,000 people and accounting for some two per cent of India’s gross domestic product (GDP).

TIS’s services include: building corporate e-learning solutions, creating learning portals; courseware conversion, and developing education products. It focuses on developing high quality products, using mature systems and processes.

TIS, established in 1990 and fully operational within the UK since 1998, is an offshoot of Tata’s involvement in the IT sector. TIS now employs over 400 people – most of whom are

based in India – who work with many of the UK’s largest companies, along with commercial publishers of e-learning materials.

TIS clients include blue chip corporations and publishing companies including Abbey National, Barclays Bank, Transco (British Gas), CGNU, BP-Amoco, the Chartered Institute for Personnel Development (CIPD), Quisic.com, SkillSoft Inc and Unilever.

TIS offers a personalised service to each of its clients. Its many years experience of producing high quality programmes, along with the size of its operation helps to reassure clients that it can provide anything and everything that they want from e-learning materials effectively and efficiently.

Apart from holding ISO 9001 certification, TIS is the first company providing custom-built e-learning solutions to be assessed at level 5 on the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) scale. The Software Engineering Institution (SEI), a federally funded body set up at Carnegie Mellon University to deal with various issues affecting the software industry, established this quality assurance model in the late 1980s. Designed as a method for evaluating defence software subcontractors, the CMM evolved into a model that can be used to assess internal process improvements. For further information, see http://www.sei.cmu.edu/sema/pub_ml.html

TIS’s products have won numerous awards, including gold awards from BIMA, the Personnel Today E-learning Award in 2001, along with a BETT Award in 2002.

About Tata Group

The Tata Group was established nearly 100 years ago by Jamsetji Tata to help build India’s industrial infrastructure. Tata established India’s steel, chemical and automobile engineering industries. It founded Air India and was instrumental in establishing the information technology (IT) industry in India.

It is now India’s largest business house, employing over 330,000 people. The Tata group accounts for some two per cent of India’s gross domestic product (GDP).

Currently, there are 86 companies within the Tata group, which continues its original practice of distributing a proportion of its profits to charity – including funding India’s largest cancer hospital.

Within the IT sector, the Tata group employs some 25,000 consultants working across the globe – some 900 of them in the UK servicing 100 or so clients.

Further information from:

Sambit Mohapatra, Tata Interactive Systems, 020 7235 8281

Bob Little, Bob Little Press & PR, 01727 860405