Graduate Management Admission Council Approves ACT Recommendation of Vantage Learning to Provide Essay Scoring Services Beginning 2006.SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Vantage Learning's IntelliMetric(TM) Automated Essay-Scoring Program to Score Analytical Writing Assessment Portion of the GMAT GMAT abbr. 1. Graduate Management Admission Test 2. Greenwich Mean Astronomical Time GMAT n abbr (US) (= Graduate Management Admissions Test) → (R) Vantage Learning (www.VantageLearning.com), the world's leading provider of online assessment tools, has entered into an agreement with ACT Inc. to provide computer-based essay scoring for the Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA AWA As Well As (internet chat lingo) AWA Animal Welfare Act AWA Australian Workplace Agreement AWA America West Airlines AWA Anime Weekend Atlanta (Anime convention in Atlanta, GA) ) portion of the Graduate Management Admission Test(R) (GMAT(R)) beginning in 2006. Under a separate agreement among ACT and Pearson VUE Pearson VUE is an electronic testing company owned by British media company Pearson PLC. Founded in 1994 by E. Clarke Porter as Virtual University Enterprises, the company currently operates in over 145 countries with more than 5,100 authorized centres. with the Graduate Management Admission Council(R) (GMAC GMAC General Motors Acceptance Corporation GMAC Graduate Management Admission Council GMAC Give Me A Call GMAC Genetic Manipulation Advisory Committee GMAC Genetic Modification Advisory Committee (Singapore) GMAC Give Me A Chance (R)), ACT is responsible for GMAT(R) AWA prompt development and scoring. ACT will provide essay scoring by human raters that will be combined with automated essay scoring provided by Vantage Learning. The announcement was made from the floor at the Association of Test Publishers' Innovations In Testing 2005 Conference. GMAC is a non-profit education association of leading business schools worldwide and is dedicated to creating access to and disseminating dis·sem·i·nate v. dis·sem·i·nat·ed, dis·sem·i·nat·ing, dis·sem·i·nates v.tr. 1. To scatter widely, as in sowing seed. 2. information about graduate business and management education. The organization administers the GMAT(R)--the only test designed specifically for business schools--more than 200,000 times annually. More than 1,500 schools and 1,800 programs around the world use the assessment exam. As part of the new contract, IntelliMetric(TM), Vantage Learning's automated essay scoring engine, will score applicants' responses to two types of prompts within each GMAT(R) AWA assessment. IntelliMetric is an artificial intelligence program capable of scoring open-ended and constructed-response questions with documented levels of accuracy and reliability exceeding that of human expert scorers. Vantage Learning's IntelliMetric consistently applies the pooled knowledge (scoring rubric RUBRIC, civil law. The title or inscription of any law or statute, because the copyists formerly drew and painted the title of laws and statutes rubro colore, in red letters. Ayl. Pand. B. 1, t. 8; Diet. do Juris. h.t. ) of expert scorers to the essays it receives. "We're proud that ACT and the GMAC have chosen to use IntelliMetric in scoring the essay portion of the GMAT(R)," said Dr. Scott Elliot, Chief Operating Officer Chief Operating Officer (COO) The officer of a firm responsible for day-to-day management, usually the president or an executive vice-president. for Vantage Learning. "In the past three years, we've seen an increased focus on writing at both the secondary and post-secondary levels. This, in turn, has intensified in·ten·si·fy v. in·ten·si·fied, in·ten·si·fy·ing, in·ten·si·fies v.tr. 1. To make intense or more intense: the need for top-rate essay-scoring methods that can assess writing skills. Vantage is providing automated essay scoring for several ACT programs. We've found the ACT human essay scoring to be outstanding and combining this with IntelliMetric is the right choice for computer-based essay scoring." After a thorough evaluation of Vantage Learning's IntelliMetric automated essay scoring program, ACT determined the program was able to accurately and reliably score the GMAT(R) essays. During the evaluation, IntelliMetric was used to score 500 responses to six GMAT(R) test prompts. IntelliMetric showed very similar results to human raters, with a perfect and/or adjacent agreement 96-98% of the time. This agreement level was also significantly higher than the former method. Delivery of the ACT human and Vantage automated scoring of the GMAT(R) AWA will begin in early 2006. 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(TM) 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 A closed-ended question is a form of question, which normally can be answered with a simple "yes/no" dichotomous question, a specific simple piece of information, or a selection from multiple choices (multiple-choice question), if one excludes such non-answer responses as dodging a 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 the 2004 Award of Excellence from Technology and Learning Magazine, and Eduventures selected Vantage Learning as one of the eight most innovative educational technology companies. In addition, MY Access! was included in Technology and Learning Magazine's Top 10 Smart Technologies for Schools in 2002, and is a Codie Awards finalist three 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 Harcourt Assessment, previously known as "The Psychological Corporation" is a company that publishes and distributes psychological assessment tools and therapy resources. The company is currently in the process of being bought by Pearson. , Inc., CTB/McGraw Hill and Thomson Learning, and industry giants such as Microsoft, Apple Computer, AOL (A division of Time Warner, Inc., New York, NY, www.aol.com) The world's largest online information service with access to the Internet, e-mail, chat rooms and a variety of databases and services. , and Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA[3]) is an American vendor of computers, computer components, computer software, and information-technology services, founded on 24 February 1982. . About ACT ACT has a well-established reputation for excellence and integrity in test development. ACT has nearly two decades of experience in computer-based testing Computer-based testing (CBT), also called e-exam, computerized testing and computer-administered testing, is a method of administering tests in which the responses are electronically recorded, assessed, or both. and has delivered 4.2 million computer-adaptive tests to 1.2 million students. Currently, 4,500 colleges and universities use the company's admission services. About the Graduate Management Admission Council Founded in 1953, the Graduate Management Admission Council (www.gmac.com) began as an association of nine business schools whose goal was to develop a standardized test A standardized test is a test administered and scored in a standard manner. The tests are designed in such a way that the "questions, conditions for administering, scoring procedures, and interpretations are consistent" [1] to help business schools select qualified applicants. In the first year it was offered, the assessment GMAC sponsored, now known as the Graduate Management Admission Test, or GMAT(R), was taken just over 2,000 times; in recent years, it has been taken more than 200,000 times annually. Initially used in admissions by 54 schools, the GMAT is now used by more than 1,500 schools and 1,800 programs around the world. |
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