The University of Toronto Early-Stage Technology (UTEST) program's second cohort is coming to a close, with applications for a third cohort open until April 17. The incubator program, a University…
Crowdmark, a graduate of the University of Toronto Early-Stage Technology (UTEST) program’s first cohort, was the focus of a February 17 article by Ivor Tossell, The Globe and Mail‘s technology culture columnist.
Dr. James Colliander, co-founder and CEO of Crowdmark.
Created by U of T professor James Colliander, Crowdmark allows educators to quickly and efficiently grade large amounts of tests and exams. Tossell highlighted Crowdmark’s innovation and ease-of-use for the grader. The product is cloud-based, meaning that a team of educators marking the same group of exams don’t have to be in the same room at the same time. Instead, grading can be done remotely.
Tossell spoke with Colliander and Lyssa Neel, Crowdmark’s chief operating officer and a former MI project manager. Here’s an excerpt from the article:
James Colliander, a professor at the University of Toronto, found himself staring at about 5,000 pages of papers from a national math exam. Traditionally, a cadre of markers would sit around a large table for marathon grading sessions, assembly line style, each one tackling the answer to one question before passing it on to the next marker.
Mr. Colliander hacked together an expedient: He scanned the pages into a software framework and distributed them to markers digitally. He was essentially able to parallelize the marking process.
Dr. Lyssa Neel, COO of Crowdmark and former MI project manager.
“The markers didn’t all have to be in the same place, so they could move much faster,” says Lyssa Neel, COO of Crowdmark, the company that, with Mr. Colliander as CEO, has brought the idea to market.
Crowdmark is an online service that takes the idea of distributed marking and scales it to an institutional level.
Here’s an excerpt from the release (emphasis ours):
Toronto, Ontario (January 20, 2014) – Crowdmark Inc., a software company that delivers an ultra-scalable collaborative assessment platform to educators worldwide, announced today that it has entered into an agreement with Ricoh Canada Inc., to support Crowdmark’s customers, and with plans to explore additional enhancements to the relationship that will deliver additional client benefits.
Today’s announcement covers standardized terms and pricing from Ricoh Canada to provide a national printing and scanning service to Crowdmark’s customers in post-secondary institutions and K-12 school systems across Canada. Discussions about a similar service for USA-based Crowdmark customers are next on the agenda.
Crowdmark, a graduate of the University of Toronto Early-Stage Technology (UTEST) program’s first cohort, was the focus of a February 17 article by Ivor Tossell, The Globe and Mail‘s technology culture columnist.
Crowdmark, a MaRS Innovation and University of Toronto start-up incubated through the UTEST program, has reached a deal with Ricoh Canada Inc.Toronto, Ontario (January 20, 2014) – Crowdmark Inc., a software company that delivers an ultra-scalable collaborative assessment platform to educators worldwide, announced today that it has entered into an agreement with Ricoh Canada Inc., to support Crowdmark’s customers, and with plans to explore additional enhancements to the relationship that will deliver additional client benefits.