For up-and-coming credit derivative traders who can't tell their covenants from their collateral, help is on the way. Fledgling traders and even seasoned pros scanning the horizon for a refresher course on credit risk or, say, probability and statistics, can find their prey at Zoologic, a leading producer of on-line financial education courses in foreign exchange, risk management, asset management and other areas. Courses can be accessed on the Internet, via an intranet or by CD-ROM.

The New York-based company now has 42 courses in its library, with another 50 planned for this year. Its recent lineup includes its first foray into credit derivatives--"Hedging Credit Risk," "Introduction to Credit Derivatives" and "Portfolio Management of Credit Assets"--as well as a short take on operational risk. The reason for this increase in production is twofold: the four-year-old company continues to expand the subject areas it covers, and it's been dividing longer courses into series of shorter, more directed sessions.

Initially, courses ran 40-50 hours. Now, most are three-to-five hours long for the sake of convenience. Most are produced in tandem with finance professionals with teaching experience. Kenny Aubade, a Federal Reserve Board official and former New York University professor, codeveloped Zoologic's bond math course. Aswath Damaterin, a professor of corporate finance at NYU, helped structure the corporate finance course.

Enrollees get a snap overview of the subject in user-friendly language, a tight weave of theory and practical thinking, and a bevy of non-repeating equations. The Zoologic format: highly integrated text and animation and a lot of interactivity," says Mina Samuels, editor-in-chief at Zoologic. One of the company's strengths is its hands-on approach to equations, which enables users to move numbers around and watch the effect of a change in a variable on, say, the valuation of an instrument or portfolio. "Those equations in turn cascade into an animation," adds Samuels, "which gives users a visual touchstone to understand the concept." Courses can be licensed by investment banks and brokerages via a global site license, through a package deal, or on a one-off arrangement. Individual courses cost approximately $120 per month to license.

For more information, see www.zoologic.com.