Netmedia Education and TAG Developments (“TAG”), the e-Assessment Division of BLi Education Limited, are pleased to announce that the two companies have reached agreement on offering interoperability and Single Sign on between the highly popular Netmedia Education Learning Platform and TAG’s multi-award winning MAPS coursework assessment system.

It has long been recognised that in order for schools to maximise the benefits of implementing ICT to empower teaching and learning, teachers and students will need to utilise a number of systems and software applications. However, this means that teachers and students need to remember an increasing number of user names and passwords for the different systems that they use, causing additional and unnecessary classroom management headaches for teachers and placing ICT hurdles in the way of students’ learning.

Netmedia and TAG recognise this issue and as a result have developed a solution that is currently being implemented in an extended pilot with selected schools. This solution provides seamless integration between Netmedia’s My Suite Learning Platform and TAG’s MAPS coursework assessment system through Netmedia’s ‘MyIdentity’. It allows a user to log-on only once to a dedicated log-on service, and then access multiple services that otherwise would each require unique logins/passwords. MyIdentity utilises Shibboleth, an international standard that “hand shakes” between different systems to facilitate access, using encrypted protocols to maintain very high level of security. This is a huge step forward for teachers, saving them valuable time in accessing and managing the many pieces of software that they need in their planning and teaching.

Matt Wingfield, business development director for TAG Developments, says: “This strategic alliance provides the opportunity to bring together for the first time the proven benefits of both Assessment for Learning and Learning Platform technologies, providing seamless access for teachers and students to a range of powerful learning tools. The reaction from the schools with which we have already piloted this technology has been overwhelmingly positive, and we very much look forward to working with other schools and Local Authorities to offer this tie-up between MAPS and the Netmedia Learning Platform.”

Steven Threadgold, chief technical officer for Netmedia Education says: “Our goal in developing these technologies is to help LAs, teachers and support staff save time and effort - we realise how valuable their time is. While the technology lives in the background, invisible to the end-user, it is the driving force behind making the experience easier, better and more enjoyable. We believe that our efforts will provide enormous benefit by making the access to, and management of, learning platforms and services like MAPS as straight forward as possible.”

MAPS (Managed Assessment Portfolio System) was first launched by TAG in 2002, and is now in use by over 140,000 students aged 5 – 18+ years in schools right across the UK to support the management and assessment of both curricular and qualification digital coursework. The system supports an increasing number of qualifications from AQA, Edexcel, OCR and SQA, including GCSE, GCE, Vocational qualifications and all five of the new Diplomas, enabling teachers to manage, assess and submit qualification coursework seamlessly to the awarding body.

For more information about MAPS (incl. organising a demonstration) please do not hesitate to contact Matt Wingfield: 07850 488 502 or m.wingfield@taglearning.com

-ENDS-