Pearson's Jim Behnke Appointed to IMS Global Learning Consortium's Board of Directors

BOSTON, June 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Jim Behnke, Chief Learning Officer of Pearson, has been appointed to the IMS Global Learning Consortium's Board of Directors, a premier group of the world's leaders in educational and learning technology.

IMS Global Learning Consortium works to promote and enhance the use of technology in the educational and corporate learning sectors across the globe. Educating more than 100 million people worldwide, Pearson, the international education and media company, develops and promotes technologies offered as part of integrated learning solutions that are changing the way educators teach and students learn.

"Jim Behnke's addition to the IMS board will enhance our ongoing work in bridging the investments made in higher education learning technology across the K-12 segment," said David Ernst, Chairman of the Board, Chief Information Officer at California State University. "It has become very clear from the cross-segment participation in IMS that activities such as Learning Tools Interoperability, Common Cartridge, and Learning Information Services have great applicability to the K-12 segments worldwide and Pearson will play an important role in this."

"I'm honored to have this opportunity to work with the other members of the IMS board," Behnke said. "Working together, the interoperability standards that we develop and promote will help provide more students around the world with access to online learning programs as well as a more seamless user experience."

A complete listing of the Board of Directors of IMS Global Learning Consortium follows at the end of this release.

As Chief Learning Officer, Behnke's responsibilities with Pearson extend across the company's U.S. K16 business to international higher education. He is responsible for managing Pearson's online learning strategy and the technologies that underlie it, including a suite of formative assessment programs that are groundbreaking in their ability to improve student outcomes and institutional productivity. These programs, known as the MyLabs, were used by 3 million students around the world in 2007. Behnke has extensive experience as an educational publisher, entrepreneur, general manager and a developer of educational software. Over the past decade, his work has focused primarily on the development of new product models and programs that harness the unique capabilities of the Web as a medium for teaching and learning.

IMS Global is supported by over 115 organizations -- the world's leaders in educational and learning technology, including leading learning technology product suppliers and publishers, leading institutions of learning and training, and leading government and professional consortia. Current contributing members of IMS GLC are listed at http://www.imsglobal.org/members.html.

About Pearson

Pearson plc is an international education and information company. Its major business operations are: Pearson Education, the world's leading education business, which helps teachers teach and students learn at every stage and in every part of the world; The Financial Times Group, which has an international network of business and financial newspapers and online services that are read by millions of business executives and investors every day; and Penguin Group, which is one of the pre-eminent names in consumer publishing, with an unrivalled range of fiction and non-fiction, bestsellers, and classic titles. For more information, visit http://www.pearson.com/.

About IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS GLC)

IMS Global Learning is a global, nonprofit, member organization that strives to enable the growth and impact of learning technology in the education and corporate learning sectors worldwide. IMS GLC members provide leadership in shaping and growing the learning industry through community development of interoperability and adoption practice standards and recognition of the return on investment from learning and educational technology. For more information, including the world's most comprehensive set of learning technology interoperability standards, information on the annual Learning Impact conference and awards program, and free community resources for learning technology leaders, visit http://www.imsglobal.org/.

IMS Global Learning Consortium Board of Directors Rob Abel, Ed.D. Chief Executive Officer of IMS Jeremy Auger Chief Operating Officer, Desire2Learn Curtiss Barnes Vice President, Industry Product Strategy, Education and Research, Oracle Corp. Jim Behnke Chief Learning Officer, Pearson David Ernst Chairman of the Board, Chief Information Officer at California State University Cynthia Golden Vice President of EDUCAUSE William Graves, Ph.D. Senior Vice President for Academic Strategy, SunGard Higher Education, Professor Emeritus, UNC-Chapel Hill Joel Greenberg Ph.D., Open University's Director of Strategic Development, Learning and Teaching Solutions John T. Harwood, Ph.D. Senior Director, Teaching and Learning with Technology, Penn State Ray Henderson Chief Products Officer for ANGEL Learning Michael King Vice President, Global Education Industry, IBM Murray Leach Senior Manager, New Zealand Ministry of Education Peter Segall President, North America Higher Education and Operations, Blackboard Mark Stiles Head of Learning Development and Innovation, Staffordshire University, Chairman of the Board, JISC