Link-Systems International and SUNY Partner in Support of Sharing Technology and Academic Resources New York (the STAR-NY Consortium)

Tampa, FL, November 07, 2011 --(PR.com)-- Teri Vigars of SUNY-Cortland along with Jen Drake of TC3 and Chris Bergeron of Link-Systems International were recently discussing SUNY’s issues regarding current available resources and budgetary constraints. The conversation of system-wide sharing of existing resources blossomed into the idea of forming an online tutoring consortium and the STAR-NY Consortium was born. “We realized that SUNY Cortland had both the technological skills, thanks to the support and guidance of LSI, and the administrative experience running an online tutoring program necessary to create a SUNY tutoring consortium,” said Teri Vigars, Assistant Director of the Academic Support and Achievement Program at SUNY-Cortland. The STAR-NY Consortium was formed to promote campus-to-campus collaboration and to implement strategies to improve efficiency, generate cost savings, build capacity, and expand student services.

The founding members of the consortium (SUNY Cortland, SUNY Delhi, TC3 and SUNY Buffalo) and Link-Systems International have agreed to a one-year pilot of LSI’s WorldWideWhiteboard® online collaborative suite to provide live, online tutorial support for writing. “Coordinating the launch of the STAR-NY Consortium with the founding members—connecting students and tutors from across the SUNY community—has been a rewarding experience. In this difficult economy, it is more important than ever to offer the resources necessary to help students achieve their goals. Joining the STAR-NY Consortium will allow SUNY institutions to do that while contributing to their goals of improving performance in critical areas like student course completion and retention and degree completion,” said Chris Bergeron, Northeast Representative for Link-Systems International, Inc.

Each member of the STAR-NY Consortium provides a tutor, and all tutors participate in ongoing technical and pedagogical training. Students at participating campuses will benefit from expanded tutorial support for writing, yet no individual campus has to entirely staff and fund online tutoring five nights per week. The consortium hopes to expand service to include other subjects in the future. LSI will provide technical support and training for all participating members.

About the SUNY System

The State University of New York, abbreviated SUNY, is a system of public institutions of higher education in New York, United States. It is the largest comprehensive system of universities, colleges, and community colleges in the world, with a total enrollment of 465,000 students, plus 1.1 million adult education students spanning 64 campuses across the state. The SUNY system has 88,000 faculty members and some 7,660 degree and certificate programs overall and a $10.7 billion budget. SUNY includes numerous comprehensive and community colleges and four University Centers. SUNY's administrative offices are in Albany.

About Link-Systems International, Inc.

Link-Systems International, Incorporated (LSI) is a privately held technology services and content development company that has been dedicated to providing student success and student retention solutions since 1995. LSI’s core technologies include a very flexible online tutoring/teaching platform, an online grade book, an online algorithm engine with metadata and workflow capabilities, and an online business intelligence/data mining technology designed to provide real-time alerts regarding student/school/teacher performance, attendance, and other metrics. LSI’s core services include content development, consulting, and online tutoring through our NetTutor® brand. LSI customers include K-12 publishers, higher education publishers, virtual high schools, higher education institutions, technology companies, and joint programs dedicated to providing online educational content to members of organized labor and their families.

For more information, visit http://www.link-systems.com.

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