The College Board Will Offer Its CLEP Exam at Home with Remote Proctoring

The College Board announced that its CLEP exam created five decades ago, will be available remotely through a proctoring solution. To date, only CLEP-certified centers were authorized to take this exam. The examination taken remotely at home by the student will have the same timing, content, format, and on-screen experience as any test delivered through a CLEP test center. "Your at-home appointment will be monitored by a human proctor online through Proctortrack, CLEP’s remote proctoring partner," stated The College Board through its official website. With the chosen partner of Proctortrack, CLEP students will be monitored via video by a human proctor while they use their computers. These computers will be only Windows PC, no Macs being allowed, said The College Board. "To participate in remote proctoring, you must have a computer (PC only, no Macs), webcam, speaker, microphone, a whiteboard or one sheet of paper in a transparent sheet protector and a dry erase marker for note-taking, and a quiet, secure testing environment." In addition to this equipment and after scheduling the exam with Proctortrack, students would need to download and install an ETS-designed online test application. The news of the CLEP remote modality was received cheerfully by the creators of ModernState.org's non-profit "Freshman Year for Free" program — which delivers online instructional materials for CLEP takes. ModernStates.org has over a quarter-million registered users. It has become the online leader in this area. Its platform and course content is built on an Open edX-based ecosystem developed by IBL Education, the parent company of this news service.

The Moodle Platform Company Buys Three Partners and Creates Moodle US

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Degreed Reaches a Valuation of $1.4 Billion After Raising $153 Million

Training and career development EdTech startup Degreed raised $153 million in Series D funding valuing it at $1.4 billion. The investment, which was co-led by Sapphire Ventures and Riverwood Capital, will be used for global expansion and pursue acquisitions — the company said. Existing investors that participated in the round included Signal Peak Ventures, Owl Ventures, GSV Ventures, and AllianceBernstein Holding LP. To date, Pleasanton, California–based Degreed has raised $335 million. This big fundraising came along with the announcement of a new CEO: Dan Levin, former COO of Box will succeed Chris McCarthy — who steps down as CEO after eight years since the company was founded. He will remain seated on Degreed's Board of Directors. In 2020, Degreed more than doubled its active user base and increased its team by 50%, to 600 employees, across six continents. Skill recognizes skill. We’re excited to announce a fresh $153 million in Series D funding to help us solidify Degreed as the most innovative upskilling platform. Thank you to our clients, existing investors, and new investors for the incredible support. https://t.co/sl85UKGbOH pic.twitter.com/NZxZbayMgr — Degreed (@degreed) April 13, 2021  

Instructure Launches a Tool that Assesses Students' Learning Loss During the Pandemic

Instructure — the private company that runs the Canvas LMS platform — announced yesterday a tool that lets teachers evaluate students' learning loss since the COVID quarantine began. The solution, called MasteryView Assessments, consists of a collection of short, pre-built assessments integrated into Canvas LMS. It will be available in August 2021. Schools will be able to assess and address what each student learned and what support will need to close gaps. "It will help many states who are trying to figure out how to appropriately assess the extent of learning loss over the past year," said an Instructure manager to IBL News. The Salt Lake City-based company said that "districts can purchase these MasteryView Assessments with funds designated in the recent federal stimulus packages to help students close learning gaps caused by the COVID-19 pandemic." These funds were designated in the December 2020 CRRSA/ESSER II federal stimulus package. "MasteryView Assessments appear like familiar online quizzes, covering both Math and English Language Arts (ELA) for Grades 3-8, including English I & II and Algebra I," explained the company.

Open edX & Learning Platforms | April 2021: edX Inc, Coursera's Whopping Valuation, Instructure, Udacity, Degreed, SAP…

Online Learning | April 2021: Universities Mandating Vaccination, Soros, Unizin, IBM, Bank of America, Lego…

A University in Virginia Requires Full Vaccination to Its Staff by May 31

Duke and Boston Universities Will Mandate Vaccination this Fall Amid Students' Consent

More high-profile universities joined the list of institutions requiring the COVID-19 vaccine for the fall semester. Duke University and Boston University were the latest ones dismissing legal precedences for schools mandating immunizations. On March 25, Rutgers University in New Jersey became one of the first larger public universities to mandate the vaccine. Some voices expressed outrage, but student protests didn't happen. Two Ivy League universities — Cornell in New York and Brown University — took also the risk of being criticized and went ahead with the mandate. Notre Dame was the first Christian Catholic university to move forward with the requirement. The list is expected to grow until almost any institution adopts the mandate. The waivers implemented on religious and medical exemptions have definitely opened the door. The news on Duke University came after the institution issued a stay-in-place order in March to battle rising COVID-19 cases. Some local TV stations reported mixed reactions among students. In the case of Boston University, its President, Robert Brown, stated that "our goal is to move to a “new normal” in the fall that includes only minimal social distancing, where all our facilities are open, students can move freely between residences, and guests are welcome."  

The OpenSAP Micro-Learning Free Platform Reaches Five Million Enrollments

openSAP announced this month it attracted five million course enrollments and 1.2 million learners on its platform – a free webspace that offers micro-learning and expert-led courses, as well as podcasts. In the last three years, the number of course enrollments doubled. Established in 2013, the openSAP platform mostly provides essential knowledge on SAP, such as SAP S/4HANA, and SAP Business Technology Platform, along with topics such as intelligent integration, digital transformation, and machine learning. It includes approximately 250 courses with an average of 20,000 enrollments per class. Gamification and discussion forums are part of the platform. "Our goal is to ensure that everyone in our ecosystem – customers, partners, developers, and employees – all have the right skills to thrive in a digital world," said Maxwell Wessel, EVP, and Chief Learning Officer, SAP. Training through micro-learning is the shiny new trend, although the concept started in the mid-1990s. It is quickly becoming a staple of training programs. For example, Deloitte Australia announced a mobile training system with small digital courses for its 10,500 employees. The consultancy firm uses the EdApp micro-learning platform, which offers "bite-size learning" downloaded directly to employees' smartphones. Jennifer Siu, Deloitte's Manager for Leadership and Learning, explained it in a series of videos. Quick, engaging, and entertaining content provides learners with short pieces of information instead of watching hours of monotonous videos. Learning science probes that digestible pieces of content aligned with spaced repetition increase retention. Micro-learning and Nano-learning are effective ways to deliver knowledge not only to Generation Z's students — who grew up with smartphones and are used to soundbites on YouTube, Tik Tok, and Snapchat — but increasingly to corporate audiences. This is forcing many corporations to rethink their learning, credentialing, and assessment approaches.  

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