Questionmark and ETS Technologies, Inc. To Deploy Indiana High School Exams

For Immediate Release

Questionmark and ETS Technologies, Inc. To Deploy Indiana High School Exams

Princeton, N.J. (April 22, 2002) - ETS Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Educational Testing Service, has announced an agreement with the Indiana Department of Education and the Indiana Commission for Higher Education to deliver computer-based administration and automated scoring of the Core 40 English 11 End-of-Course Assessment during the Spring 2002 semester.

ETS Technologies will provide the development and use of automated scoring models for open-ended essays and reading questions and online score reporting. ETS Technologies will utilize its core capabilities, e-rater™ and c-rater™, to provide automated scoring for essays and open-ended reading comprehension questions.

As a sub-contractor to ETS Technologies on this project, Questionmark will host the registration, administration, delivery and reporting system using Questionmark™ Perception™. Perception enables educators and trainers to write, administer and report on tests, exams, and surveys securely using individual PCs, local networks, the Internet, and intranets. Questionmark's hosting platform allows assessment projects to be turned on and off rapidly, helping customers focus on the assessment instead of the technology.

The English 11 End-of-Course Assessment is being phased in as an indicator of school performance and improvement under the state's new accountability system. The objective of the Department of Education and the Commission, working in conjunction with the Indiana University Center for Innovative Assessment, is to introduce the exam as a pilot with options that include computer-based testing and scoring. The English 11 End-of-Course Assessment pilot is voluntary for schools in the state this year, but will be mandatory beginning in 2004. The state expects that most schools will participate in the pilot and projects that, although given the choice of paper-and-pencil or computer-based testing, more than 30,000 students will use online testing.

"The assessment program will help teachers and students understand how students' proficiency levels relate to established academic standards," said Dr. Suellen Reed, Superintendent of Public Instruction. Stan Jones, Indiana's Commissioner of Higher Education added, "The results of this test will help ensure the quality and rigor of the Core 40 courses taught throughout the state are consistent."

Rich Swartz, President and CEO of ETS Technologies said, "This project is a real innovation in student assessment. Automated scoring of essays is becoming fairly routine, but, in this case, we're also using the computer to score open-ended responses to reading comprehension questions. The expense and time required to manually score responses would be prohibitive. Our automated scoring technologies make the scoring not only affordable, but swift and sure as well."

"We are very pleased to be part of this project, which gives us the opportunity to work closely with the experts from ETS Technologies and the State of Indiana," said Questionmark President Eric Shepherd. "By implementing online assessment in anticipation of mandatory end-of-year testing, the state is showing the way forward for many others.

The e-rater™ scoring engine was developed to replicate the scoring process of expert readers and provide a quick, reliable online score. E-rater is trained to evaluate an essay in terms of its syntactical variety, topic content, and organization of ideas. Proven highly effective and accurate, e-rater has provided one of the two scores for over a million examinee responses to essay questions administered as part of the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT®). The agreement rate between e-rater and expert readers on GMAT essays consistently exceeds 98 percent.

C-rater is an automated scoring engine for short-answer content-based responses, such as those based on questions that appear in a textbook's chapter review section. C-rater uses natural language processing technology and is appropriate for evaluating short-answer constructed responses in online instruction and assessment applications. In feasibility studies, c-rater scoring of student responses is comparable to scoring by content experts in a variety of content areas.

About ETS Technologies, Inc.:
ETS Technologies is a subsidiary of Educational Testing Service (ETS), Princeton, N.J., established in May 2000, to advance ETS's many technological innovations in the field of assessment. Its goal is to identify, develop, and deploy innovative technologies in support of online learning and assessment applications. Through ongoing, scientifically-based research, ETS Technologies aims to expand and improve educational opportunities by harnessing proven technologies in the service of learning. For more information, contact ETS Technologies on the web at http://www.etstechnologies.com, or call 1.609.734.1506.

About Educational Testing Service:
Educational Testing Service is the world's largest private educational testing company and measurement organization, and a leader in educational research. ETS develops and annually administers more than 11 million tests worldwide. For more information, contact Educational Testing Service on the web at http://www.ets.org, or call 1.609.921.9000.

About Questionmark:
Questionmark is a privately owned company that has been producing testing and assessment software since 1988. Questionmark Perception software is compatible with many learning management systems and is used in more than 50 countries. The company's hosting service offers scalability and rapid deployment for organizations wishing to run online assessment without having to use their own servers. Businesses, governments, schools, colleges, and universities in more than 50 countries use Questionmark software. Visit http://www.questionmark.com for more information, or call 1.800.863.3950.

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