Press Release - October 26, 2004
Vantage Learning's MY Access! Wins Award of Excellence from Technology & Learning
Online writing assessment program wins under Language Arts category
Newtown, PA, October 26, 2004 - Vantage Learning (www.vantagelearning.com), the world's leading provider of online assessment tools, announced today that Vantage Learning's MY Access! is an Awards of Excellence winner in the Language Arts category. Technology and Learning Magazine's prestigious Awards of Excellence program has selected the very best educational applications for recognition and honor for the past 22 years.MY Access! is an online, portfolio-based writing instruction program that rapidly scores essays with accuracy greater than expert human scorers and provides immediate diagnostic feedback on several important writing dimensions, ranging from organization to mechanics. Using MY Access!, students and teachers can track student writing progress over time, allowing teachers to monitor students' writing abilities and motivating students to review and revise their work.
"Our judges chose MY Access! since the program offers excellent writing activities, a friendly interface, and individual writing feedback," said Susan McLester, Editor-in-Chief of Technology & Learning. "Our judges believe MY Access! is a great English Language Learners tool that could be considered 'best of breed'."
This past summer, Vantage Learning introduced MY Access 5.0 which incorporates several significant enhancements that include a 36% increase in operational prompts; targeted feedback in multiple languages; a multilingual thesaurus/ dictionary/word finder; word count feature; five new reporting features; and, model essays so students readily see what a sample essay looks like at various score points.
"Vantage Learning is pleased to accept Technology & Learning's Award of Excellence for MY Access!," said Harry Barfoot, VP of Sales of Marketing of Vantage Learning. "We are honored that the education industry recognizes that Vantage's writing instructional and scoring program consistently assists in a student's academic achievement."
MY Access! is based on Vantage Learning's IntelliMetric® engine, which uses a rich blend of artificial intelligence (AI) and the digitization of human expertise to accurately assess a student's competency and progress in subjects ranging from reading and writing to science and social studies. IntelliMetric scores examinee responses to essay questions more accurately than previous versions and all other competitive products on the market. IntelliMetric employs a team of electronic judges to score an essay in less than one second.<
About Vantage Learning
Vantage Learning (www.vantagelearning.com), an affiliate of Vantage Laboratories and the leading provider of online assessment and automated essay scoring, developed IntelliMetric® to meet the needs of business, education, and government agencies needing a comprehensive Internet-based test authoring, delivery, scoring and reporting platform. IntelliMetric administers and scores responses to open-ended questions over the Internet using advanced artificial intelligence (AI) technology. An individual can enter a response to a question posed, submit the response, and receive an immediate score with feedback within seconds.
Most recently, Vantage Learning's MY Access! won an Award of Excellence from Technology & Learning Magazine and Eduventures selected Vantage Learning as one of the eight most innovative educational technology companies. In addition, MY Access! earned a 2003 District Administration Top 100 Award, was included in Technology Learning Magazine's Top 10 Smart Technologies for Schools, and is a Codie Awards finalist 2 years in a row. Vantage Learning provides services in all 50 states including Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Virginia, Oregon, and Texas and provides services to educational leaders such as The College Board, ACT, Harcourt Assessment, Inc., CTB/McGraw Hill and Thomson Learning, and industry giants such as Microsoft, Apple Computer, AOL, and Sun Microsystems.