TAG Developments (the e-Assessment division of Sherston Software) has successfully secured a further contract with Edith Cowan University to supply its multi-awarding winning MAPS e-assessment technologies to support a research project looking into the capture and assessment of student work in two secondary school subject areas - Visual Arts and Design. The project is also being supported by Western Australia's School Curriculum and Standards Authority.

Building on the success of earlier similar projects that have used TAG's innovative assessment technologies, this project will involve about 400 students from various secondary schools in Western Australia, and will run from July 2012 - May 2013. The project will see the students capturing their work via TAG's MAPS assessment platform, and then teachers will assess the work using two approaches:

- Traditional criterion based assessment
- Professional judgement via TAG's innovative Adaptive Comparative Judgement system.

The results from the two approaches will then be compared and analysed from the perspective of achieving the highest assessment reliability.

Under the Bonnet: The Technology Behind the Project
The MAPS assessment platform was originally developed in partnership with Worcestershire Local Authority in the UK to support summative assessment for students aged 11-14 years. It has subsequently developed into the leading evidence based assessment solution for schools, colleges and universities, supporting formative and summative curriculum and qualification assessment across a wide range of subjects and with students aged 11-18 years, as well as vocational adult learning. MAPS is also used extensively to support qualification assessment by both Oxford, Cambridge and RSA examinations board (OCR) and the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA) the UK's largest unitary accreditation body. The tool allows teachers to create activities that provide students with a mechanism for capturing project based learning in the classroom and so is ideal for supporting coursework and other learning scenarios where capturing and reflecting on the process of learning, rather than just the final outcome is important.

The Adaptive Comparative Judgement system provides an unparalleled mechanism for assessing student work using the collective professional judgement of several judges, rather than relying solely on the judgement of a single marker. This approach dramatically reduces the influence of personal subjectivity on the assessments and thus increases the and can be used to assess a wide range of student evidence from scanned written scripts, rich multi-multimedia portfolios, to spoken responses, enabling highly reliable results whilst maintaining the validity/authenticity of the assessment.

For further details please contact Karen Pernynes via karen.pernyes@sherston.com

Notes to the editor:
About TAG Developments http://www.tagdevelopments.com

TAG Developments is the e-assessment division of Sherston Software Ltd. Over the past decade, TAG has produced a number of innovative and highly exciting online community and e-portfolio solutions, including MAPS, the flagship, award winning online e-Portfolio based e-assessment and e-moderation system and Red Pen Tool, the revolutionary on-screen marking and annotation tool.

About MAPS http://www.maps-ict.com

For information on Adaptive Comparative Judgement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_comparative_judgement

About Sherston www.sherston.com
Sherston is a leading publisher of educational software both in the UK and internationally, with engaging and award-winning e-learning resources covering every part of the curriculum. Its outstanding reputation is built upon over 25 years of providing schools and nurseries with innovative educational technology products, designed to motivate children and boost their performance.

Sherston’s broad portfolio includes its flagship online products, www.planetsherston.com and www.earlyyearsworld.com, plus an extensive range of products that are Learning Platform/LMS ready, optimised for Android and iPad tablets and are CD-ROM/USB flash drive deliverable.

TAG Developments, the e-assessment division of Sherston Software Ltd is pleased to announce the completion of work to develop two brand new tools for assessing student evidence and interaction that is generated through the use of Social Media.

Working in partnership with its Singapore partner iGINE Pte. Ltd. and as part of a contract won with the Infocomm Development Agency of Singapore to create Collaborative Online Learning Tools (see http://tagdevelopments.com/news/90 for further details), TAG has completed the necessary development work to release these highly innovative social media assessment tools to pilot schools in Singapore.

There are many advantages to using social media to support formal and informal learning - it engages learners through a familiar medium that they are already using, that is highly collaborative and provides equal opportunity for all learners, and that also encourages Real Life Skills, such as sharing knowledge and developing dynamic/adaptive learning. However, there are also challenges for teachers in using social media as a mechanism for assessment, including there being a wide range of disparate social media tools that students can use, leading to lots of potential evidence, which can be difficult for a teacher to untangle in order to get to the real evidence of learning and collaboration.

TAG's new social media assessment tools allow teachers to untangle the huge potential volume of evidence created within a range of social media tools, including Facebook, Twitter and MSN Messenger through the use of Latent Semantic Indexing, which enables the system to “suggest” how pieces of student’s work may demonstrate meeting certain learning objectives. However, the system goes further than this and also utilises Social Networking Analysis (Centrality) to help teachers assess interaction and group dynamics.

These exciting new tools are now being piloted in Singapore in both primary and secondary schools and TAG is also in discussions with UK based accreditation bodies about how these tools could be utilised to deliver authentic and manageable assessment as an integral part of 21st Century learning.

For further details about these highly innovative tools please contact Matt Wingfield, Managing Director - TAG Developments on 0203 176 0394 or matt.wingfield@sherston.com

TAG Developments, the development division of Sherston Software is pleased to announce the completion and integration of the “Adaptive Learning Engine” into Sherston's flagship online product, Planet Sherston. The Adaptive Learning Engine is designed to support teachers, automatically creating a course of activities based on an individual pupil’s attainment and dynamically evolving as the child progresses.

The Adaptive Learning Engine uses an intelligent algorithm to create and assign sets of learning activity packages that support progression and improvements in attainment levels. The algorithm continually updates the activities assigned as it collects data on scores achieved, time spent, number of attempts etc. and also continually improves itself as it learns which activities best serve each pathway.

The comprehensive reporting features of Planet Sherston then allows the teacher in real-time to view the child's performance, as well as a summary of the ‘I can statements’ the student has achieved mapped to national curriculum levels. Keeping the teacher in firm control, this will be a feature that can be enabled/ disabled by the teacher at pupil, class and school level.

For further information please contact Reeza Awoodun, Group Marketing Director on 07810 878585 or reeza.awoodun@sherston.com.

TAG Developments, in partnership with iGINE Pte Ltd, a Singapore based software development company, has successfully bid for and been awarded two e-assessment contracts by the Singapore Government.

The first contract has been awarded by the Infocomm Development Agency of Singapore (IDA) and is a ground breaking 18 month pilot project looking into the development of a range of e-assessment tools to help teachers track and credit student learning generated through the use of social media. The project will utilise TAG's award-winning range of e-assessment tools, including MAPS, LiveAssess and The Red Pen Tool, but will also see the creation of a new and highly innovative range of teacher analytic tools, designed to seamlessly integrate with students' use of popular social media tools such as Facebook, and to be used as an integrated part of schools' existing Learning Management Systems (Learning Platforms/VLEs). This advanced technology platform will be adapted to the exact requirements of the Singapore context, and iGINE will play a key role in providing localization and support efforts that delivers a fit-for-purpose system to the schools. This project is being funded by grant contributions from IDA, as well as by internal investment from TAG Developments and TAG's local Singapore based partner iGINE Pte. Ltd. (http://www.igine.com).

The second contract has been awarded to TAG by the Curriculum Planning and Development Division of the Ministry of Education in Singapore. This pilot project will be focused on the use of TAG's existing e-assessment tools, including MAPS, LiveAssess and the Red Pen Tool, to investigate the use of e-assessment tools in supporting teaching and learning within Social Studies. It will also utilise TAG's revolutionary Comparative Pairs Assessment Engine to provide a new, less subjective and highly reliable approach to the assessment of student work produced through the pilot, which will involve two secondary and two primary schools.

TAG Developments' Managing Director, Matt Wingfield said "Singapore is a wonderfully vibrant society that embraces change and rises to the challenges of the modern world. Their approach to education actively encourages new learning paradigms with enthusiasm at all levels. We are therefore absolutely delighted to have been chosen to work with IDA and the Ministry on these two ground breaking pilot projects and we really look forward to working with the government and the pilot schools."

Yak Hong Beng, iGINE’s Managing Director, said, “We are glad to be playing a major part in helping to shape how future students learn in Singapore schools. Our partnership with TAG Developments marries an advanced and mature educational technology platform with the intimate knowledge of the local educational context and requirements in Singapore. This allows iGINE to adapt TAG’s range of award-winning e-assessment tools to the exact needs of local schools and to provide effective local support to them. We are confident that the synergy of this strategic partnership will lead to a whole new world of e-learning possibilities that will excite teachers and students alike.”

Notes to editors:

About TAG Developments – TAG Developments, the award-winning software development division of BLi Education, is a highly regarded value-added team of educational specialists, web developers and project managers who have specialised in creating market leading web-based e-learning, e-portfolio, e-assessment solutions and innovative educational community websites for the UK education market since 1997. TAG Developments' solutions not only facilitate e-assessment within schools, but they also provide accreditation and awarding bodies with mechanisms that enable schools to electronically submit digital coursework that relates to general and vocational qualifications - easing coursework management, providing more transparency and accuracy in assessment and moderation, and saving teachers' time.

About iGINE - Incorporated in Singapore in Mar 2000, iGINE is an eBusiness and Managed Service provider. It specialized in B2B integration and business processes with customers’ external business partners. In 2008, it formed a subsidiary, PulseSecure Pte Ltd, focusing on Web Application Security. In 2010, iGINE partnered UK-based TAG Developments to provide customised educational software and tools to schools in Singapore and the region.