History
Founded in 1919, Western New England College is a private, non-sectarian college located in Springfield, Massachusetts. The College enrolls approximately 4,600 students: 2,000 full-time undergraduates, 500 in full and part-time programs in the School of Law, and approximately 2,500 in part-time undergraduate and graduate programs offered on campus and at sites throughout the Commonwealth. Western New England College has 30,000 alumni around the world.
In February 1997, Steven Narmontas, who currently is the Manager of the Educational Technology Center at the College, introduced a small group of faculty members to a software system he had worked on as a spare time project. Dubbed "The Manhattan Project", because it was largely developed in secret, the software enabled teachers to post files to a web site for their students to read. The earliest version of "Manhattan" also supported a few discussion groups and private messaging. Several pioneering professors made good use of the system immediately and Steve continued to develop the software. Today "The Manhattan Virtual Classroom" is very much a normal part of teaching and learning at the College supporting over 300 course sections per semester.
Manhattan was released on the Internet as free software under the GNU General Public License in October of 2000. Since then, the system has been downloaded thousands of times, and is in use around the world. You can obtain a free copy of The Manhattan Virtual Classroom and other supporting materials, including the latest version of this and other documentation from http://manhattan.sourceforge.net
Western New England College is committed to a developing a culture of collaboration, to developing innovative programs and alternative learning formats, to providing its students and faculty with a responsive technological environment, and to establishing itself as a leader regionally and nationally. Supporting the open source development and dissemination of Manhattan fits well within the goals we have set for us in our Strategic Plan.
We truly hope you find Manhattan useful, and that you'll visit us on the web at: http://www.wnec.edu
