PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Waypoint Outcomes, a Philadelphia-based educational assessment software company, unveils its new learning and assessment product today at the 2011 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference hosted at the Philadelphia Convention Center.
The new software, eponymously named for Waypoint, provides educators with tools to delineate and assess 21st Century skills like critical thinking, innovation, ethics, communication and information literacy. It is designed to capture “evidence of learning” of the cognitive skills required by regional and professional accreditation associations.
“Waypoint fulfills more than five years of work with a variety of institutions, including Tier 1 research universities, community colleges, private colleges, and K12 institutions,” said Andrew J. McCann, CEO and Founder of Waypoint Outcomes. “We have invested in the user experience and created software that takes a radically simple approach to assessment to help educators create meaningful data.”
Waypoint unites two widely-accepted teaching tools, classic rubric grading scales and document mark-up. Rubrics, which are developed by individual instructors, shared across a particular institution, or adapted from Waypoint diverse library, describe cognitive skills and define thought processes that underlie mastery, while the electronic document mark-up capability provides tools to speed and improve the grading of student work.
“Waypoint brings an efficiency and elegance to the time-honored practice of creating personalized feedback for students,” continued McCann. “Our goal is to bring enjoyment and value to what is often considered a chore by educators: grading papers, commenting on presentations, evaluating lab reports and similar activities.
“Our Authentic Analytics create an unprecedented view into the learning happening on campus,” McCann continued. “Waypoint’s tools and software make it easy to aggregate data across multiple courses, academic programs and campuses to understand the depth of learning being achieved.”
According to McCann, the online grading palette is a favorite feature of instructors. It presents all the information needed to efficiently incorporate assessment into grading in a single screen, including clickable pop-up panels for the rubrics, a “frequent comments” library, easy return of grades to the school’s Learning Management System (LMS) and most importantly, space for rich, individualized feedback for students.
The software is on display at the 2011 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference, Booth 2119, October 18 – 21, Philadelphia Convention Center. For more information or to watch a video demonstration, please visit WapointOutcomes.com or contact Andrew J. McCann at 610.660.7737 or andrew@waypointoutcomes.com.
About Waypoint Outcomes
Founded in 2003 by Andrew J. McCann, Waypoint Outcomes is the software for educators dedicated to teaching 21st century skills. By uniting grading and assessment into an elegant experience for faculty and students, Waypoint helps educators collaborate to create rubrics, provide students with personalized feedback, and report authentic analytics against course, program, and institutional learning outcomes.