On Tuesday June 2, TSL won two top awards at the prestigious 2009 Association of Online Publishers (AOP) Awards: Best Website, Business, for TES Connect and Best Digital Publisher, Business, beating off high profile competitors such as Reed, UBM, Haymarket and Incisive.
TSL also received a special mention for a third entry, Best Editorial Team, Business.
The awards event, held annually, seeks to recognise the very best online offerings from publishers. The awards are judged by highly acclaimed industry figures.
Best Website - Business
Following 18 months of research, development and testing, TES Connect was re-launched as the first real application of networking technology for the UK teaching community. Social networking tools, with a strong, useful professional purpose, have been offered to the education world. TES Connect currently attracts over one million unique users per month, who come to network with each other and share useful classroom resources posted by their colleagues in the sector.
Judges’ comments included:
"A vibrant and optimistic site which empowers its users. With high quality UGC at its heart, TES Connect has harnessed the power of the community in a slick and professional way, and is clearly respected and valued by its users. With fantastic design and usability, it has enabled teachers to make a beneficial impact on the lives of their peers."
Best Digital Publisher - Business
TSL Education’s aim is to 'drive up the quality of UK education', and over the last year it has done so not just through an innovative recruitment service, but also social networking and resource-sharing tools tailor-made for the education sector. TSL’s websites celebrate the skills, energy and creativity of teachers, no matter what their discipline or where they teach.
The judges said:
"TSL is delivering value to its audience through shared knowledge and a clear grasp of the digital space. The site provides not just a viable business model, but a personal experience to its users. In this, they have achieved exactly what they set out to do."
Edward Griffith, Head of TES Connect comments:
"We are thrilled that our hard work over the last year has been recognised in such a major way; winning two AOP awards is high praise indeed and it is a huge source of pride for TES Connect to have been rewarded by such a respected and experienced panel of judges."
AOP Awards
Now in their eighth year, the AOP Digital Publishing Awards are firmly established as the definitive showcase for the best that the online publishing industry has to offer.
The Awards were presented by TV comedian Hugh Dennis on Tuesday June 2, 2009 at Old Billingsgate, London.
About TES Connect
Used by thousands of schools and colleges, with over 700,000 registered users, TES Connect is the central focus for the UK teaching community to share their ideas, thoughts and views outside the staffroom. TES Connect is a social network that allows teachers to network, share resources and search for jobs. It is the world’s largest social network for a single profession and allows teachers to connect with other professionals to find and share their best classroom resources and advice. Split into five user-friendly sections including jobs, community, resources and My TES, the site gives teachers access to tools that have the potential to transform lesson planning and the quality of lessons taught.
Further details on the site:
Community: The world’s largest online social network for teachers where they can share their professional profile with peers, discuss a range of issues on the forums, and see what their professional colleagues have been making good use of in the classroom
Resources: The TES Connect Resources section is home to a vast library of teaching resources all created and uploaded by other teachers in the TES community for everyone to share. With separate subject channels for every type of teacher, there are all kinds of classroom materials including lesson plans, videos, PowerPoints, games, puzzles, worksheets and tutorials. With over 29,000 resources already on the site, hundreds are uploaded by the community every week.
Jobs: www.tes.co.uk is the number one site for the best teaching jobs across the country. With over 700,000 registered users, it is the UK’s leading online recruitment resource for schools and colleges looking to find new quality teaching and support staff. Now a key part of TES Connect, visitors to the jobs section can browse by position, subject, workplace and by location and build customised job alerts so when that perfect new job vacancy appears it is sent to them.
The Paper: all the print articles from the Times Educational Supplement appear on the site the day they are published.
My TES: A personalised page where teachers can save the content that is relevant to them. Users also receive updates from the community as well as bookmarks and links to top content on the site