Dr. John Wagstaff, CIO
El Camino College

Online instruction is great for faculty and students. They love it. But, it's a high-maintenance proposition. Many faculty and students are online at hours that I don't have staff. And, my network systems aren't built to deliver 99.999% of reliability on a 24/7 basis. That's the risk! I've noticed schools that try to host themselves and struggle.

With Etudes, I don't worry. We've been with Etudes for two years now. They are on a secure site and are 99.999% available. We have had no down-time and no glitches. I don't get any complaints. That's a good thing for me.

The other thing that attracted us to Etudes is the cost point. Because Etudes is a non-profit consortium, the membership isn't in the business of making money. It is in the business of covering its costs and evolving the product. It's a little like owing a condominium. We charge what is needed to make the thing sustainable. And that means, from El Camino College's point of view, that we'll pay less than we would with a commercial vendor - in fact, we pay a lot less.
 

Diane Rosner, Dean of Instruction
Lake Tahoe Community College

Our college was on the brink of three years of declining student enrollments. When our college decided to go with Etudes to build a distance learning program, we not only got a big college support network, but we got a price that was affordable for our college to move students ahead.

With Etudes, we were able to turn the declining enrollments around and provide the diverse learning environment that our distance learning students and faculty needed. Etudes for us was more than a course management system. It was the answer to our distance learning needs, the answer to quality assurance, the answer to faculty who were new to online teaching, and the answer to our students who were new to e-learning.

It answered so many questions for Lake Tahoe Community College at a price we could afford.
 

Dr. Wendy Bass, Distance Education Coordinator
East Los Angeles College

As a Distance Education Coordinator, I love the support that all the faculty get from Etudes. Even though I am very available to them, the fact that they can go into the Etudes Users Group and get immediate help and guidance on their own makes a huge difference.

In my DE Coordinator role, I provide support to faculty and students, and I offer training, while I also still teach. So, having faculty have the ability to have their questions answered promptly through outside support is so crucial in the effectiveness and quality of our distance education program.
 

Leslie Hope, English Instructor
Los Angeles Valley College

The Etudes community is amazing. I love that I can be at home working, yet still be part of such a vital, interesting community.... If I run into a professional problem, I can get almost immediate help from the Users Group support forums.

In all the years I've been teaching, I have never had this level of support.... I've grown professionally so much since I started using Etudes. I've never enjoyed my job as much or worked as hard as I am doing now.
 

Mark Lawler, Etudes Instructor
Syracuse, New York

I have now been trained on four different class management systems, and frankly, I found the Etudes system most powerful, flexible and intuitive. I look forward to using it to build my course.

I think the way that the Etudes training is done has been one of the most effective ways of introducing an instructor to the tools and capabilities of a system, short of course, of actually being in the trenches and getting your course ready for delivery for the first time.