Toronto, Ontario, Canada (July 9, 2015) Crowdmark, Inc., the education technology company that created the world’s first online collaborative grading and analytics platform, today announced that the University of Waterloo has selected Crowdmark to improve their assessment workflow and enhance student learning.
Crowdmark was chosen by the University of Waterloo through a public RFP process following an extensive 12 month pilot. The pilot program consisted of 35 courses in 124 sections with 80 instructors, 280 graduate TA’s, 32 undergraduate markers and 15,500 students.
Instructors who piloted Crowdmark responded positively to the platform’s ease of use, intuitive user interface, and flexibility to grade, alone or in a team, anytime and anywhere.
“Participants in the pilot reported that Crowdmark is just a much better way to grade, even on a small scale. Others highlighted the ability to work more efficiently, with no paper cuts and no paper shuffling. This allowed for greater time flexibility, with the possibility for instructors to mark in their spare time at home without having to carry physical exams,” said Associate Professor Benoit Charbonneau who lead the pilot program.
This summer Crowdmark will be integrated with the University’s LMS, “Waterloo LEARN” from Desire2Learn (D2L) and made available to all instructors. U of W is dedicated to being at the forefront of innovation, world-changing research and inspired teaching. Crowdmark will help to support this mission by improving feedback to students and saving valuable instructor time that can be better spent with students or on research.
“Concurrent grading sessions by large teams at Waterloo helped us validate our server architecture. Waterloo instructors reported Crowdmark gave them new insights into the quality and consistency of feedback given to their students. Beyond clear efficiency gains, we are seeing emergent benefits showing that Crowdmark is transforming the way instructors help students learn,” said James Colliander, CEO of Crowdmark.
About Crowdmark:
Crowdmark is an online collaborative grading and analytics platform that enables educators to evaluate assessments more effectively than ever before. Founded in 2012, Crowdmark allows educators to grade a variety of assessment types, including handwritten assessments, securely in a web browser. The platform cuts grading time by more than 50% and assessments can be returned to students, with rich feedback, within hours. This significantly enriches the learning and teaching experience for students and educators by transforming assessment into a dialogue for improvement.