PurpleTrain.com Malaysia was officially launched in Kuala Lumpur on 23 February 2001. To officiate the inaugural ceremony, the Guest of Honour, Yang Berhormat Datuk Tan Chai Ho, Deputy Minister of Energy, Communications and Multimedia, was invited to grace the event. The event saw an impressive turn-out from members of the media, corporations and other educational institutions.

With the launch, PurpleTrain.com would bring to the Malaysian public a new mode of learning that would facilitate life-long learning. As Malaysia heads towards achieving its Vision 2020, of becoming a developed country by the year 2020, it is vital for Malaysia to attain the status of knowledge-based economy or k-economy. Competing economies are racing to transform their populations into knowledge societies or k-societies, a society of people who are constantly enriching themselves with knowledge to stay competitive. And inevitably, these people have to embrace the philosophy of life-long learning.

To fuel this pursuit of life-long learning is PurpleTrain.com, the e-learning service provider of the Informatics Group. Riding on the Internet technology, electronic learning or e-learning is readily available to almost anyone, anywhere, anytime, globally, instantaneously and inexpensively. With the merging of technologies, notably the mobile, broadband and satellite technologies with the Internet, e-learning will soon be the de facto learning mode for the busy working population of the emerging k-economy, who needs the freedom of learning anytime without a fixed schedule and the geographical freedom of learning anywhere, at home, in the office, and while travelling.

"The many advantages of e-learning provides anytime, anywhere learning, a strong benefit that traditional classroom-based learning does not provide. This is why PurpleTrain.com has already gained a strong foothold in numerous markets internationally, as we now have students from all over the world including countries like Japan, US, Germany, Australia, Eastern Europe, etc," said Dr Wong Tai, CEO and Chairman of PurpleTrain.com.

To meet the increasing demand for corporate training, PurpleTrain offers training and e-learning solutions for organisations. E-learning provides a highly flexible and cost-effective method of training employees, also eradicating problems like minimum training participants and the feat of scheduling training sessions. Employees training progress and performance can also be closely monitored by the organisation through a customised learning management system.

Besides providing e-learning programmes for training and education, PurpleTrain also provides online placement services to over 80 renowned universities worldwide.

With this official launch, PurpleTrain.com will be able to contribute in assisting the Malaysian public in the pursuit of life-long learning, and to bring Malaysia closer towards the vision of transforming into a k-society.

PurpleTrain.com is proud to announce yet another batch of graduates who have graduated from its range of online programmes. PurpleTrain extends its heartiest congratulations to the graduates!

These 31 new graduates have successfully completed the online Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Computing programme awarded by the University of Portsmouth (UOP). Among this batch of students, one student has graduated with a 2nd Class Division I Honours, six students have graduated with 2nd Class Division II Honours, and 6 students have graduated with 3rd Class Honours.

Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Computing, University of Portsmouth Honour Roll
2nd Class Division I Honours	1 student
2nd Class Division II Honours	6 students
3rd Class Honours	6 students

"We are proud to have helped them attain higher education through e-learning," said Dr Wong Tai, CEO and Chairman of PurpleTrain.com. "These students are not only well-equipped with the knowledge gained through the course, but because the course was conducted totally online, these students are also individuals who are well-versed in the Internet and the latest virtual tools in e-learning today."

Well-supported by the team of facilitators and the back-end staff at PurpleTrain.com, these students have successfully passed their course and earned the Honours Degree awarded by the University of Portsmouth. To some of the graduates, they have fulfilled a dream, to others it opens many new doors for them in their career path.

These graduates will be attending the convocation either in United Kingdom in May, or attend the annual graduation ceremony held in Singapore and Malaysia in November.

Delivered fully online via PurpleTrain.com, the University of Portsmouth programme is designed and ideal for today's professionals and mature students who want to pursue a highly-recognised qualification on a flexible, anytime, anywhere basis. For a full range of online programmes available, please visit www.purpletrain.com.

With the rapid growth and development of PurpleTrain.com, it currently boasts of over 300 online courses, including latest additions being Master degree programmes from renowned universities like University of Wales and University of Surrey. Newly under the PurpleTrain wing are numerous degree programmes from prestigious universities like the University of Southern Cross, as well as numerous IT training and vendor certification programmes.

Besides providing a wide array of online courses, ranging from certificate, diploma, degree and master levels in Computing and Business, PurpleTrain has also continuously invested extensive resources into enhancing its services to students. In the constant quest to achieve service excellence, PurpleTrain has recently launched the new SMS (Short Message Service) notification service to its over 40,000-strong community of online users globally. To better serve our customers, there will be many more new exciting developments in the pipeline at PurpleTrain.com.

Launched in May 2000, PurpleTrain has now evolved into a new position as a leading e-learning service provider. PurpleTrain has embarked on massive projects to provide various e-learning environments and services to the other business units of the Informatics Group, as well as to external companies. This is in line with the Informatics Group's corporate vision of being the leader of quality life-long learning services, now making learning possible anytime, anywhere via PurpleTrain.com.

PurpleTrain.com has blasted its first SMS (Short Message Service) to their students on 9 April 2001.

The launch of the SMS Notification Service is in line with PurpleTrain's constant quest to provide more quality services to all our students. Our students will now be able to receive notifications and reminders anytime, anywhere and instantly, right through their mobile phones! For instance, without having to log in, students can now receive up-to-the-minute alerts ranging from the release of exam results, exam entry cards, chat reminders, payment reminders, news updates, and many more!

This SMS service covers all the major mobile network operators in the countries around the world, it will provide instant anytime anywhere message alerts to our students. This brings about tremendous convenience to all the PurpleTrain students.

Students who have not already registered to subscribe to this new SMS service, please provide us with your mobile or handphone numbers today! Please go to the home page of www.purpletrain.com and click on the second banner at the top to begin receiving instantaneous SMS messages from PurpleTrain!

Always wanted to further your studies, but your financial resources are tied up? PurpleTrain now has the ideal solution for you! From now, all new students in Singapore who are taking degree, masters and above programmes at PurpleTrain can now take up a very attractive bank loan from Development Bank of Singapore (DBS) Bank.

Exclusively extended out to PurpleTrain students, the loan provides a quick and simple solution for your financial constraints. As an additional benefit, PurpleTrain students get to enjoy a waiver of the usual processing fees for bank loans.

Depending on whether you are a part-time or full-time student, there are two different loan schemes that you can take up as follows:

Part-time Students
Part-time Students Prime + 1.75% p.a.
Paid through monthly instalments during course of study.


Full-time Students
Full-time Students Prime + 2.0% p.a.
Service-only interest during course of study.
Upon graduation, you can repay the loan either: in one lump sum; convert into a personal loan at prevailing interest rate; or convert into DBS CreditAssist, a personal loan revolving line of credit, at prevailing interest rate
(* DBS Prime Rate is approximately 5.0% p.a.)

In order to qualify for the loan, students must be a Singapore Citizen or Permanent Resident earning at least $30,000 per annum. Students can loan up to two times the monthly income of the borrower/guarantor, whichever is lower. Approval of loan applications is at the discretion of DBS Bank. Other requirements and details of the DBS loan can be found on www.purpletrain.com.

PurpleTrain has launched its country-specific pages on www.purpletrain.com for Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong.

By selecting the desired country on the top of the PurpleTrain home page, students can gain access into a world of information that is specific to that country. For instance, people in Singapore can now check out all the exciting happenings in Singapore, from events, promotions, courses, previews dates to feature articles.

These country pages will provide another avenue through which interested students can find out the latest news relevant to their country and location. This is especially useful for promotions and courses that relate only to specific countries, like for example the Master in Business Administration programme that is open only to Singapore and Hong Kong students, or special give-aways in your country of residence.

PurpleTrain plans to also extend these country pages to all the other countries very shortly.

Check out the country pages now at www.purpletrain.com.

PURPLETRAIN CERTIFICATION FOR
ALL ONLINE FACILITATORS!

To ensure a good quality of standard and professionalism among all PurpleTrain online facilitators and sales personnel, PurpleTrain has introduced a special certificate - the PurpleTrain.com e-Learning Professional Certificate. From now onwards, all our online facilitators and sales personnel are required to go through a full training on PurpleTrain in order to be certified and awarded the PurpleTrain e-learning Professional Certificate. This certification also extends to all e-HRTC facilitators who will be facilitating the online internal staff training programmes.

Facilitator - Ms Preethi Kesavan

Dear K Preethi,

I greatly appreciate your patience and good guidance throughout the course. Moreover, thank you for provide clear explanations on our queries being raised. It is not easy for working adults like us to allocate time to log in to the discussion room. And I feel it is more difficult for you to scan through all queries being raised by each and individual students. Definitely, we have to praise you for making such a good effort.

Once again, thank you for your kind understanding.

Warmest regards,
Joseph Lay
Final Year Student of PurpleTrain's University of Portsmouth,
Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Computing

Master of Business Administration, University of Wales

Master of Business Administration, University of Surrey

Informatics' Bachelor Of Science In Computer Science

Advanced Diploma in Computer Studies 2000 by NCC Education

International Advanced Diploma in Computer Studies 21 (Chinese) by NCC Education

Certified Higher Diploma in e-IT


IT Industry Professional Certification

• CISCO Certified Courses
  • CISCO Certified Network Associate (CCNA)
  • CISCO Certified Design Associate (CCDA)
  • CISCO Certified Network Professional (CCNP)
• Microsoft Certified Courses
  • Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE)
  • Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer (MCSD)
• Oracle Certified Courses
  • Oracle 7.3 Certified Database Administrator (DBA)
  • Oracle 8 Certified Database Administrator (DBA)
  • Oracle 8i Certified Database Administrator (DBA)
• Novell Certified Courses
  • CNE Netware 5.0
• CompTIA Certified Courses
  • Network+ Certification
  • i-Net+ Certification
• NCC Certified Courses
  • NCC SkillsDiploma in Internet Certification

Informatics Professional Certification

• Informatics Certified E-Commerce Designer
• Informatics Certified Internet Administration Specialist
• Informatics Certified Internetworking Specialist
• Informatics Certified E-Business Solution Expert

Skill Builder Technology Courses

• Microsoft Windows Essentials Curriculum
• Microsoft Office 2000 Curriculum
• Project Management Curriculum
• Lotus Notes R5 Curriculum
• Web Design Curriculum
• Web Development Curriculum
• Netscape Curriculum
• Knowledge Management Curriculum
• Application Development Curriculum
• Database Management Curriculum
• Microsoft Development Curriculum
• Unix Curriculum
• Microsoft BackOffice Curriculum
• Internetworking Curriculum
• Microsoft Windows 2000 Curriculum
• Sun Curriculum
• Linux Curriculum
• Lotus Domino Curriculum
• SAP Technology Curriculum

ABOUT PurpleTrain.com

PurpleTrain.com is the e-learning portal by The Informatics Group that offers a one-stop service for business and IT education programmes, corporate training courses and education-related services.

By combining innovative technology with world-class training content, PurpleTrain.com offers companies and individuals a high value, quality and effective online training solution. About 300 online courses are available, offering degrees, diplomas and certificates in business and IT programmes. Our online learning community now stands at over 40,000 users.


Look out for more of PurpleTrain.com's continuous efforts to provide more and even better services to our students. To be added into our mailing list, write to jchua@purpletrain.com. For more information, please visit www.purpletrain.com or email jchua@purpletrain.com.