OREANDA-NEWS. March 31, 2008. The Russian Academy of Economics will bring on stream a training course in the state-of-the-art information systems for its students and will build Russia's unique system for e-management of the training process, reported the press-centre of IBS.

IBS has completed development of a unique Online Training Corporation system designed to be the core system for the new form of applied education (virtual simulator training) for students of G.V. Plekhanov Russian Academy of Economics (RAE). This system will make RAE the first higher education institution to provide fully-fledged business applications training for economics students.

"Technologies to be implemented at RAE are especially valuable as they will enable a higher education institution to give would-be managers the right training so that no re-training would be needed," explained Dmitry Sadkov, "This is a truly innovative project in both its vision and the technologies used. We are confident that this project will help to bring about fundamental change in the approach to training and will provide for professional training in line with the real-world business requirements."

The notion of the Online Training Corporation was conceived by RAE leaders, and the system was designed by IBS consultants in cooperation with the higher education institution's professionals. Implementation of the Online Training Corporation will enable RAE to achieve the most important objectives of RAE's innovative curriculum:

Introduce new applied forms of education
Build innovative educational infrastructure
Establish an integrated information environment for R&D and education
Improve quality, accessibility and interactivity of education and enhance training process manageability
The Online Training Corporation project includes development of several interrelated systems:
The virtual labs
The remote control system of the higher education institution
The project and knowledge management system

The Virtual Labs subsystem will complement RAE’s training curricula with virtual simulators for students to learn operating skills in all major management IT systems used in business practice. The Virtual Labs will include such system classes as ERP (Microsoft Dynamics AX 3.0), Corporate Performance Management (CPM) (Cognos 8), Business Intelligence (BI) (Cognos 8 BI), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) (Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0), Project Management (IBS Project Center running on Microsoft Share Point Portal and Microsoft Project), e-Business (EB) (Microsoft Dynamics AX 3.0), dynamic simulation (PowerSim Studio 7), business processes engineering (CASE) (ARIS Business Architect 7.02). The Virtual Labs will be accessible through the remote control system from any computer in the higher education institution.

The remote control system. This system will serve as the entry point to all capabilities of the Online Training Corporation and is also intended for training process planning, control and analysis. Students will be able to use the remote control system to get all training process information (the training calendar, course syllabuses, training materials), take required tests and go through appraisals. Faculty members will be able to use it to plan and schedule lectures, book classrooms, monitor the training process online (group lists, attendance, academic performance), or compile, and monitor compliance with, individual training schedules for students.

The project management system and the knowledge management system. The higher education institution will use the project management system to manage its service processes such as implementation of various projects, procurement, bidding, project contract management, etc. The knowledge management system will provide for information, training and learning resources to be stored and accessed.

"Nowadays it is increasingly hard to imagine enterprise management without use of various business applications. Therefore it is important that Russian higher education institutions with a focus on economics should introduce applied forms of education in this field. Our graduates will be well versed in management system capabilities and will get hands-on experience of using them. This will give them a major advantage in the career market," commented Tamara P. Danko, Vice Principal for strategic development, Plekhanov Russian Academy of Economics.

In the first phase IBS developed and demonstrated functional capabilities of the Online Training Corporation system run-time version. Documentation and training curricula (lecture courses, lab work, tests) were prepared for use with installed training applications.

The Online Training Corporation system has now been deployed and evaluated on IBS computing facilities and its test operation is underway. It will be migrated to and configured at RAE in September 2008 after RAE purchases hardware required for the system. IBS plans to provide system operation training for RAE's staff and implement the system by the end of November 2008.

About IBS
IBS is Russia’s leading player in the IT and consulting market. It is part of IBS Group. For more information on IBS, please visit http://www.ibs.ru/

On April 17, 2007 IBS and Borlas Consulting Group announced merger and formation of the new consolidated company having estimated FY’2006 consolidated revenue of US\\$380m (US GAAP), the total headcount of over 3,500 (including over 1,500 certified consultants) and over 50% aggregate share of services as a percentage of total revenue. Eighty-four of Russia’s top 100 companies are customers of IBS and Borlas Consulting Group. The consolidated company is the absolute leader in the business applications and management consulting market (over 20% of the market) and the largest IT services company in Russia and Eastern Europe.

For further information on the company, please contact Lada Scherbakova, PR Director at 007 (495) 967-8080, or by e-mail at lada@ibs.ru

Plekhanov Russian Academy of Economics (RAE) is one of the oldest higher education institutions in the Russian Federation and in Europe, established to provide the best education in economics. In 2007 RAE celebrated one hundred years since its inception.

RAE's innovative curriculum (which aims to develop innovative customer-oriented education curricula based on cognitive technologies and higher education institution re-engineering) was among the winners of the contest among higher education institutions that introduce innovative curricula under the Education national priority project in 2007-2008.