itslearning strengthens education with Cloud integration — enabling users to share, create and collaborate on Google and Office 365 securely and directly.
BOSTON — April 26, 2017 — itslearning, the heart of the digital hub for teaching and learning, is introducing market-leading integrations to the world’s most popular Cloud apps. Users will be able to work in Excel, Word and PowerPoint directly within itslearning, without the need for a Microsoft email account or any user information to be shared with Microsoft. This new Cloud integration is available now to all users.
“itslearning is continuously working to make its education Cloud the most inclusive LMS,” says Arne Bergby, CEO of itslearning. “We believe that easily sharing, collaborating and using great tools like Google Docs and Office 365 are invaluable for education. Thus, we’ve gone beyond what our competitors offer by embedding those tools right into users’ existing workflows, so they don’t have to think about the complexities of integration or learn new technology. Plus, we’ve ensured that access is secure, so educators don’t have to worry about safety issues.”
Highlights of the new integrations include:
Access to Word, Excel and PowerPoint
Users can now work with these applications within itslearning in either of two ways. They can access their Office 365 account via the system, or they can simply click on the Word, Excel and PowerPoint icons now embedded within the system’s Resources section.
“We worked closely with Microsoft to bring these Cloud tools directly into itslearning, so users don’t need any kind of external account — no Office 365, Hotmail, 365 or Outlook, or anything like that — just the standard itslearning account,” said Bergby. “There’s no configuration or setup, they are just there, ready and waiting to be used. For most of our competitors, you have to have an external account in order to use these tools.”
Google and Office 365 Integration
Educational institutions can select which Cloud service should be used for advanced features and integration, but they will always be able to work with the two major Cloud services. Users can synchronise their itslearning accounts with G-suite by Google or Microsoft Office 365 and use all available tools in the Cloud while still in the itslearning platform.
Teachers will be able to add files from Google or Office 365 into courses, plans, assignments or the library (itslearning’s learning objects repository or LOR) by either uploading or linking to live Cloud files. They will be able to make real-time edits to Cloud resources directly from itslearning and also create collaborative spaces in Google or Office 365 for students to work together. itslearning’s YourFiles function will allow users to locate and reuse files more easily from the cloud, their device or the system itself.
“We wanted to give users as much ease of use as possible with these online tools,” said Bergby. “The reason teachers and students want to use the Cloud is because there are some great tools out there, and those tools are free. We’re helping educational institutions keep costs down by removing barriers to Cloud access.”
As itslearning joins the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, we will further simplify enterprise-level integration for Office 365. To learn more about how itslearning integrates with the Cloud, download our Cloud Integrations eBook.
About itslearning
With a passion for improving teaching and learning through technology, itslearning lives at the heart of education. In fact, the itslearning platform is the first LMS to offer educators content accessible from the Cloud, including 1.7 million free and open resources that are searchable, tagged with rich metadata and ready to use, as well as more than 35 peer-reviewed courses.
Established in 1999, itslearning is used by more than 7 million active users worldwide. With an average uptime of 99.997%, we offer the most pedagogically-aligned learning platform on the market along with the best support and services.
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