North America's Largest Online University Taps SmartDraw Healthcare Edition for Student Graphics

Athabasca University to Provide Students with SmartDraw Healthcare Edition

San Diego, CA.—December 17, 2007 - SmartDraw.com today announced that Athabasca University Students' Union—the union representing North America's largest online university—is set to provide the SmartDraw Healthcare Edition to students working remotely across the globe. As a benefit to all students, the university—which is accredited by the US and Canada and has many health-related professional programs—is providing a free one-year copy of SmartDraw to use in their classes.

According to Tamra Ross, executive director of the AU Student's Union, SmartDraw will assist students who need create business charts and healthcare graphics to complete their assignments.

"Most students have to submit their assignments by email, especially overseas students and those in remote areas," said Ross. "Some assignments require flowcharts, business charts, healthcare graphics and other diagrams that can't be created in Word^® or Excel^®. SmartDraw will allow them to create these graphics easily on their computers, export them to MS Word^® files, and send them in electronically with the rest of their work."

The SmartDraw Healthcare Edition is the first program that automates the task of creating healthcare graphics such as patient education handouts, anatomical diagrams, case management timelines, flowcharts, and much more. Unlike other graphics programs that provide you with a blank screen and expect you to draw, with the SmartDraw Healthcare Edition, you start with a template that is specifically designed to create the type of illustration that you need. You enter your information and SmartDraw does the rest: building the graphic automatically using built-in rules and professional design themes to guarantee polished, presentation-quality results in just a few minutes.

he SmartDraw Healthcare Edition contains hundreds of SmartTemplates accessible to students who need graphics such as healthcare graphics, anatomical diagrams, mind maps, decision trees, Gantt charts and timelines, cause and effect diagrams, marketing charts, maps, engineering schematics, org charts, flowcharts, and more.

"SmartDraw will really enhance the quality of the student's assignments, and the professors will also appreciate having easy-to-read charts in the assignments," said Ross.

In addition, the software is being used by the student union's administrative staff, for projects such as HR reporting, database diagrams, and office redesign. Ross believes SmartDraw will be of great help to the organization's annual reports.

"Being able to create graphs and charts to illustrate how we are allocating funds will provide important cues to members who are more comfortable with graphical representations," said Ross. "We are always looking for ways to make our reports more visually appealing."

SmartDraw offers a variety of licensing options and programs, including educational pricing. A free trial is available at www.smartdraw.com and includes both online and telephone technical support.

About SmartDraw.com
SmartDraw.com is the creator of SmartDraw, the world's most popular business graphics software and the first program that makes it possible for ordinary computer users to create presentation-quality business graphics in minutes. Each year more than two million people install and use SmartDraw and the company counts more than half of the members of the Fortune 500 as loyal customers.

Founded in 1994, SmartDraw.com is privately-held and based in San Diego, CA. In addition to SmartDraw 2008 for general business and home use, the company also offers SmartDraw Healthcare and SmartDraw Legal editions which include graphics and applications unique to their respective fields. For more information on the company or to download a free trial of SmartDraw, please visit www.smartdraw.com.