Why provide Distance Learning?: Increasingly students are finding it difficult to commit to 4 days out of the office to sit on a traditional course, preferring to use their time more flexibly. Also many people are choosing to travel less, both to save money and to reduce their carbon footprint. In response to this OCG has come up with this self-paced, mentored format which we believe gives the same quality of training, while saving the average user over $1000 in travel, hotels etc.

How it works: When you sign up you will be assigned a tutor who will support you through the course. You will also received details to log on to our training portal, from which you will have access to online lectures, and your own virtual machine on which you can do labs. We will also send you a course manual (with lab instructions and valuable reference material). The portal carries details of how to get help and support (support will usually be from your tutor, but so that we can offer the fastest and most flexible support, it may come from any of our experienced consultants). You work through the course modules at your own pace. Modules are split into a series of lessons presented as Flash presentations. Most of these are followed by labs: you can first watch a demonstration of the lab (if you want) and then try the lab for yourself. When you perform a lab, it will be done on your own Hyper-V image (accessed from anywhere with a broadband connection). If you want a certificate of completion, you will need to answer some questions sets, and also make your VM available for us at certain key points to verify that you have done the labs. If you are stuck, or you want further clarification of a concept, or you want to know how to apply a feature or concept to a particular situation you will initially send an email. We will respond to this either by email, or by including your issue in one of our regular online tutorial sessions, or via a one to one online session at a mutually convenient time. Our aim is an initial response within 1 hour (worst case 24 hours). Our online tutorial and one to one sessions are available via Skype and Microsoft Shared View (as a worst case, please have a landline available). Please note that the course has a scope. We can support you and help you, and will always try to go the extra mile; but if your requirements stray into the province of another course, or they start to look like consultancy, we will have to draw the line as politely and firmly as we can!

The Package: Here is a summary of what you get:

• access to the online lectures and a VM ; you can extend this time by request, and at a per day cost (genuine cases of hardship will be considered sympathetically)
• Course manual sent by surface mail
• Email support for the period of access &ndash; we do our best to turn these around really quickly, and our aim an initial response within 1 hour (worst case 24 hours); resolution will be via email, or by including your issue in one of our regular online tutorial sessions, or via a one to one online session at a mutually convenient time (max 2 hours one to one in total); we will try to help you with an relevant topic, but please note our comments about the scope of the course (above)</li> <li>Regular online tutorial sessions and one to one sessions
• If you want a certificate of completion, you will need to answer some questions sets, and also make your VM available for us at certain key points to verify that you have done the labs