Crawford & Associates Announces Partnership with

For Immediate Release

Crawford & Associates Announces Partnership with 
Question Mark

STAMFORD, CT - February 6, 2001 -- Crawford & Associates International, the premier provider of custom training solutions for global businesses, today announced its partnership with Question Mark, makers of testing and assessment software. As a Support Services Partner, Crawford will provide consulting and instructional design services to Question Mark customers, helping them develop sound assessment programs. Crawford's services will include the planning, design, and implementation of enterprise-wide competency assessment programs as well as the authoring and verification of question banks.

"A major focus of Crawford's training business is tracking results - how do we know what skills and knowledge our learners have gained?" says Sally Crawford, President and CEO of Crawford & Associates. "Question Mark provides an easy-to-use authoring system for developing pre-training and post-training assessments, surveys and exams. Via its web interface, our audience can take tests from anywhere in the world."

Using Question Mark's Perception authoring system, Crawford & Associates was instrumental in the successful rollout of an on-line assessment program for the world's largest supplier of products to the global semiconductor industry. Via a program designed and implemented by Crawford, more than 14,000 users worldwide have passed a series of exams to demonstrate competency in Oracle Applications software.

"Crawford & Associates' expertise in learning and pedagogy is of tremendous benefit to our customers," says Question Mark President Eric Shepherd. "The Crawford staff compliments our technical knowledge with their extensive experience in needs assessment, curriculum design, and educational consulting."

About Question Mark and Perception:
Question Mark has been producing testing and assessment software since 1988, enabling educators and trainers to write, administer, and report on tests and surveys securely using individual PCs, local networks, the Internet, and intranets.
Question Mark™ Perception™ software allows people to create question files without programming experience or knowledge of HTML. Users can create multiple question banks from which to assemble tests and surveys, organizing questions into topics and sub-topics. They can shuffle questions and answers for each participant and preview sessions to see how they will appear post-deployment. They can present a wide variety of question types and styles, incorporating videos and graphics if desired.

Participants can use a run-time system (with Perception for Windows) or a browser (with Question Mark for Web) to answer questions. For high stakes exams, where the content is valuable, Perception Secure Browser can be used to limit printing, navigation and save-to-disk functions. The participant receives the feedback that the test author has specified. Answers are then saved to a file for scoring and analysis with Enterprise Reporter, which offers a variety of report formats.

Businesses, governments, schools, colleges, and universities in more than 45 countries use Question Mark software. Typical applications include exams, quizzes, study aids, diagnostic tests, pre-course skills assessments, and course evaluations. Question Mark Corporation is actively involved with the IMS Global Learning Consortium and supports open standards. For details visit http://www.questionmark.com or call (800) 863-3950 or +44-0-203-358-3950.

About Crawford & Associates International:
Crawford & Associates International (CAI) is a creative learning company focused on the design, development and implementation of custom training solutions for a worldwide audience. Crawford combines web-based training, virtual and traditional classroom instruction and on-line assessment to increase knowledge, improve on-the-job performance and measure results. 

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