From Pilot to Production, OLi is Your Partner in Open Source Success!

OLi: Foundations

Optimized Learning, Inc. (OLi) was founded in April, 2005. OLi’s founder and CEO, Butch Porter, started a company that assists schools of all sizes embrace the e-learning revolution. Butch has a unique perspective on just how quickly and dramatically the internet has changed the higher education realm. Before founding OLi, Butch enjoyed success at some of the most prestigious educational publishing houses: Prentice Hall, Pearson Education, and Blackboard. During his years traveling the country and visiting colleges, Butch saw first-hand how the internet was revolutionizing education. In recent years, the technology pace has quickened so much that some schools are struggling to keep up. OLi was created to assist schools who want more control of their e-learning environment, while at the same time wanting a better return on their institution’s technology investment.

OLi: Support for Smaller Schools

OLi’s experience in the higher education marketplace means we’ve noticed just how much some smaller universities are getting left behind on the information superhighway. Bigger schools with bigger IT budgets are embracing the online learning environment, and each semester introduces newer technologies on what is known in the popular press as the “wired campus”. Many schools require all incoming freshmen to purchase laptops. Some schools are experimenting with Apple’s iPod. And all of these schools are providing their students with an online course management system, allowing students to access lectures, assignments, course chat rooms and more via the internet. Small to mid-size schools, with their smaller budgets, are struggling to come up with the tens of thousands of dollars it costs to host, implement, and support an online commercial enterprise e-learning solution.

OLi: Experts in Open Source

The business community has long been acquainted with open source technology, in the form of Linux, the free, open source operating system. In recent years, the educational community has begun experimenting with open source versions of online learning, collaboration tools, portfolio programs and email solutions. Many larger schools have banded together to share their software, constantly making changes and enhancements. These schools have abandoned the expensive commercial vendors in favor of the freedom and lower cost of open source solutions like Sakai, uPortal and Moodle. OLi serves as a knowledgeable and helpful partner to schools as they transition towards open source solutions. We share our expertise of this rapidly emerging field, our software knowledge, our hosting solutions, and our partnerships with leading open source vendors with our increasingly satisfied customers.