(Toronto) — The Ontario Research and Innovation Optical Network (ORION), which connects educators, school administrators and students over high-speed, fibre-optic connectivity, announced a partnership with Edsby®, an innovative, cloud-based education engagement learning management system (LMS) built for K-12 school boards.
The partnership makes Edsby available on ORION’s high-speed network, which spans the province of Ontario, connecting 37 of Ontario’s 72 school boards. This partnership will improve Edsby access and performance for Ontario school boards using ORION, and give schools not yet using Edsby a robust and reliable way to adopt its social learning and engagement system. Edsby offers gradebooks, attendance trackers, and parent-teacher communication features, content management and social classroom interaction, to name a few. Edsby availability is scheduled for the start of the 2016-2017 school year.
ORION connects Ontario’s universities, colleges, school boards, research hospitals, innovation centres, cultural institutions, and more, to each other and the world through a secure, private broadband network. It is one of the fastest research and education networks on the planet.
“Traffic from students and teachers at ORION-connected schools—whether via wireless, BYOD or 1-to-1 devices—will traverse the ORION network, bypassing the public Internet,” said John Myers, President of Edsby. “Now, ORION will provide a high performance, cost-effective gateway for school boards on its network to enjoy Edsby’s cloud-based, scalable LMS.”
“We pride ourselves on being an innovation partner for Ontario’s research, education and innovation community, constantly striving to ensure they have the best applications available,” said Darin Graham, President and CEO of ORION. “So we’re pleased to support access to Edsby’s 21st century, online social learning tool to enhance learning experiences and significantly improve Ontario student success.”
Already in 2015, three Ontario school boards have announced Edsby adoption: the District School Board of Niagara, Halton District School Board, and Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board, totaling hundreds of thousands students, parents and other guardians.
Edsby is part of ORION’s collection of Nebula cloud services, a hand-picked set of applications available for users connected to the ORION network. Nebula partners are network-based, made-in-Canada, and cost-effective technology service providers that ORION recommends as high performance solutions.
About Edsby
Edsby is a modern, purpose-built learning management system (LMS) for K-12 that enables school districts and private schools to connect their teachers, students and parents using the technologies that have become pervasive in people’s lives. Edsby is developed by CoreFour, a team that has been building scalable, reliable software systems for education organizations around the world for almost 30 years using latest technology and standards. Edsby is a registered trademark of CoreFour Inc. Read more about Edsby at http://edsby.com | @edsby
About ORION
As Ontario’s backbone of innovation, the Ontario Research and Innovation Optical Network (ORION) is one of the largest Research, Education and Innovation (RE&I) networks in the world. We connect all of Ontario’s universities, most colleges, several teaching hospitals, public research facilities, and a growing number of Ontario’s school boards to one another and to a global network of RE&I connections. In addition to providing one of the world’s fastest broadband connections, we are a research and innovation partner for our members. Through our technology and support, ORION constantly strives to keep Ontario on the leading edge of innovation. Read more about ORION at https://www.orion.on.ca | @ORIONNetwork
Further information:
Aaron Krish, Account Coordinator
C. Blohm & Associates, for Edsby
(608) 216-7300 ext. 29
aaron@cblohm.com
www.edsby.com
Cathy Bogaart
Director, Marketing and Communications
ORION Research and Innovation Optical Network
(416) 507-9860 x. 250
cathy.bogaart@orion.on.ca
www.orion.on.ca