Toronto, Ontario, Canada (May 22, 2014) Crowdmark, Inc., the EdTech company that created the world’s first online collaborative grading and analytics platform, today announced that the USC Viterbi School of Engineering Distance Education Network, DEN@Viterbi, has selected Crowdmark to improve the assessment workflow in order to improve student learning opportunities. The selection was preceded by a three month pilot program.
The full implementation of Crowdmark will launch at the end of May 2014. As part of the decision committee Jairo Delgado, Instructional Support Manager, said, “Here at DEN@Viterbi, students successfully collaborate all the time on their assignments, projects, and presentations entirely online. A similar concept was introduced to me for grading student assessments, anonymously, collaboratively, and electronically. We chose to deploy Crowdmark at DEN@Viterbi because it directly benefits engineering courses and greatly reduces grading time for faculty.”
For more than 40 years, the USC Viterbi School of Engineering Distance Education Network has been a pioneer in the distance learning arena. DEN@Viterbi, originally called Instructional Television (ITV), has been on the cutting-edge of technology since its establishment in 1972.
“DEN@Viterbi are forward thinking and enthusiastically embrace new technology to support student learning. I’m excited to see the evidence of learning outcome improvements develop during 2014-2015,” said James Colliander, CEO.
Based on their experience in the pilot program instructors found Crowdmark to be effective in reducing grading time and providing efficiency to the workflow. “I found Crowdmark to be a great help in getting my grading done quickly and in an anonymous manner. I was able to log on from all three of my work locations and avoid toting about 1,000 pages of final exams about. My students appreciated receiving their grades earlier than they would have otherwise. I hope to use it again this fall,” said Dr. Stan Settles, DEN@Viterbi Professor of Industrial & Systems Engineering.
Crowdmark is an online grading platform that enables educators to evaluate assessments more effectively than ever before. It was created by James Colliander, a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Toronto, in response to the “logistical nightmare” of grading over 5,000 mathematics exams with a team of 100 graders. Crowdmark enables educators to grade a variety of assessment types, including handwritten assessments, securely in a web browser. On average, this cuts teacher grading time by 50% and assessments can be returned to students, with rich feedback, within hours. This significantly improves the student feedback loop and provides an opportunity to enrich the learning experience through analytics.
DEN@Viterbi, is one of the top-ranked online graduate engineering programs in the nation, offering more than 44 different degrees. As part of the Office of Graduate and Professional Programs, DEN@Viterbi extends the reach of graduate and professional programs to the world by utilizing a combination of blended education and cutting-edge technologies.