TALENT DEVELOPMENT
PRnewswire | April 11, 2023
Echo360, the most comprehensive, global, SaaS-based EdTech platform for creating, delivering, and measuring learning engagement outcomes in any learning environment, builds on its DNA of EdTech innovation today by launching EchoPoll™, a revolutionary new learning engagement platform for education and business, and continuing to deliver significant enhancements to its EchoVideo™ and ExamView™ platforms.
With EchoPollTM the company builds on over 20 years of pioneering audience response systems for education and business by delivering a SaaS-based polling solution with unparalleled flexibility, connectivity, and dependability. The company collaborated closely with educators around the world to ensure EchoPoll™ exceeds their needs to create greater engagement and outcomes from learners in any environment, including:
• The flexibility for educators to use EchoPoll™ in "live" sessions with rostered and guest users, or to assign interactive work to individuals and teams outside the classroom or office.
• The ability to transform existing Power Point presentations, files, or websites into interactive Echo360 Poll Decks™ or EchoPoll™ sessions with its Companion App • Seamless connectivity with all major LMS providers such as Canvas, D2L, Moodle, Anthology (Blackboard), and popular education and business applications like Zoom and GoTo Meeting.
• Instructor and administrator dashboards with metrics that assess engagement at the course, team, and individual learner level.
• Scalability and reliability, including 99.999% uptime and 24/7 customer support
"EchoPoll™ is polling, perfected -- the culmination and next-generation technology innovation representing everything we've developed and advanced in educational polling since 2002," said Murad Velani, Echo360 President and CEO. "Thousands of instructors around the world already trust Echo360 to support their inspired learning goals, and EchoPoll™ will introduce the power of SaaS-based educational polling to thousands more."
In addition to launching EchoPoll™, Echo360 also announced new enhancements and future redesigns for two of its most popular products, EchoVideo™ and ExamView™. EchoVideo™, the company's SaaS video management platform, is rolling out new features increasing interoperability, accessibility, and student engagement; ExamView™, the popular exam creation and assessment SaaS platform utilized by some of the world's largest education and trade publishers, will be redesigned and relaunched later this year as EchoExam™ with advanced compatibility, reporting, and mobile app features.
"These innovative and interoperable EdTech SaaS platforms help our customers consolidate disparate vendor offerings by using a comprehensive portfolio of solutions from Echo360 that address their challenges of dealing with increasing costs, support, and scalability," concluded Velani.
To celebrate the launch of EchoPoll™, Echo360 will be hosting a "Worldwide Week of Polling" virtual event April 10 – 14th. Each day the company will post a new EchoPoll™ link on its LinkedIn and Twitter feeds, inviting followers around the globe to answer an interactive question of the day, with results posted at the end of each day.
News of Echo360's continuing innovations to help instructors and learners around the world transform their learning experiences through technology comes on the heels of the company earning top position in The Silicon Review's "5 Best E-Learning Providers to Watch in 2023". In recognizing Echo360, the Review cited the company's "dynamic SaaS platform of innovative solutions that correspond to the relationship, environment, content, and assessment required." Earlier this year Echo360 received similar recognition from Enterprise Viewpoint in their listing of "2023's top E-Learning Providers".
About Echo360
Echo360 is the leading SaaS interactive video learning management, content, engagement, and assessment platform serving over 2 million learners and instructors at more than 1200 higher education institutions in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific. Built for the cloud and grounded in principles of learning equity, evidence, and engagement, instructors and learners around the world can use the platform from wherever they are, on any device, to create, record and consume content, give and receive feedback, and gain real-time insights along their inspired learning journey.
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CORPORATE EDUCATION AND TRAINING
PRnewswire | April 05, 2023
Surgent Accounting & Financial Education, a division of KnowFully Learning Group, today announced the introduction of four new continuing professional education (CPE) courses, broadening its content library and enabling the accounting community to navigate critical new concerns, such as the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) and how to prepare for a potential banking crisis.
"Though the education landscape is always evolving, the recent introduction of AI through tools such as ChatGPT and the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and others are particularly noteworthy events that deeply impact the accounting and finance professions," said Liz Kolar, Surgent's executive vice president. "Our new CPE courses, which will debut just after the April 18 tax-filing deadline, include offerings that address these significant developments and demonstrate Surgent's commitment to meeting customers where they are with the absolute timeliest of content."
Each two-hour-long course will debut with a live webinar and then be available for on-demand learning. They are as follows (including first air date):
• April 19: A Complete Tax Guide to Exit Planning (EXP2)
• April 27: Lessons Learned from Recent Accounting Malpractice Actions (AMA2)
• May 2: The Risks and Benefits of ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligence (CHT2)
• May 11: Preparing for and Navigating a Potential Banking Crisis (PBC2)
A Complete Tax Guide to Exit Planning
Worth two CPE, IRS or CTEC credits, this course takes learners through the various issues needed to achieve an effective management and/or ownership change, including tax implications. Designed for CPAs in industry and public accounting who want to gain an understanding of exit planning considerations for their clients, the course will compare exit planning between entity types (C-corporations, S-corporations, partnerships, etc.).
Lessons Learned from Recent Accounting Malpractice Actions
This course provides a current overview of accounting malpractice litigation throughout the U.S., allowing accounting or financial services professionals to understand the types of claims asserted against CPA firms and strategies to employ to avoid such claims. It is worth two CPE credits.
The Risks and Benefits of ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligence
It is difficult to overstate how much will change with the rise of AI technologies, such as ChatGPT and its future incarnations, or how important it is that companies embrace the opportunity to leverage them correctly. Having conversations regarding the proper adoption of these technologies and tools is a crucial first step, including drafting policies to assist companies with their beneficial and thoughtful implementation and use.
Worth two CPE credits, this course will define the state of AI tools, what benefits and risks exist, and which steps to take to begin adopting these technologies with appropriate guardrails, policies and training.
Preparing for and Navigating a Potential Banking Crisis
The collapse of FTX followed by Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank renewed concerns among accounting and financial executives and their boards regarding how to navigate a potential banking crisis and survive.
Worth two CPE credits, this course explores the challenges of the current monetary trends, the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, and insurance reserves. Learners will analyze their collective and individual impact on accounting and financial executives in areas of credit markets and banking, risk management, cash flow planning strategies, debt and equity mix impacts in uncertain markets, and globalization of the financial markets in times of uncertainty. Specific recommendations and insights will be offered to deal with the challenges, including a discussion on the nuances of FDIC.
"Deciphering the FDIC rules, which are often misunderstood, is top of mind for CFOs, controllers, accountants, and any other accounting and finance professionals who are focused on surviving and learning from our current banking crisis," said Kolar. "This of-the-moment content – and all the information shared in these four new courses – will help prepare accounting and finance professionals to better serve their clients."
About Surgent Accounting & Financial Education
Surgent Accounting & Financial Education, a division of KnowFully Learning Group, is a provider of the high-impact education experiences that accounting, tax and financial professionals need throughout their careers. For most of the company's 35-year history, Surgent has been a trusted provider of the continuing professional education (CPE), continuing education (CE) and skill-based training that professionals need to maintain their credentials and stay current on industry changes. More recently, Surgent became one of the fastest-growing certification exam review providers, offering adaptive learning-based courses that help learners pass accounting and finance credentialing exams faster.
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CORPORATE LEARNING SYSTEMS
iMocha | April 13, 2023
iMocha, the world's leading skills intelligence and skills assessment platform launches project-based assessments to its growing portfolio of assessment types. It is built for talent development teams to gather whether employees are skill-fit and ready to be deployed on projects and determine ROI of learning programs.
Today, tech assessments are usually done via single-task coding assessments, whiteboard interviews, and MCQs but that's seldom enough to gauge project-readiness of employees or know the effectiveness of the upskilling programs. Especially for job profiles like front-end developer, back-end developer, full-stack developer, assessments that go beyond algorithms, syntax, and logic are required. iMocha's project-based assessments help talent professionals overcome these challenges and determine skill readiness, including problem-solving skills, domain-specific skills, contextual understanding, and ability to think through a project.
In August 2022, the beta version of iMocha Projects was deployed for iMocha's existing customers that included enterprises and learning platforms. Through the project-based assessments, L&D teams were able to automate time-consuming, manual evaluations that could be subject to bias. Further they also received detailed skills analytics about their employees – which helped in creating accurate and personalized learning paths. Some of the most popular skill sets beta users utilized were ReactJS, Data Science and Machine Learning, Java Spring Boot, MySQL, and more.
Sujit Karpe, CTO and co-founder of iMocha, explained, "This is iMocha's version of capstone projects: we provide the data, the problem statement, and essentially everything required to successfully work on a project. Often, coding assessments fell short in determining real-life skills; they also cannot handle multiple project files like ReactJS, Angular, Jupyter Lab, and more. With iMocha projects, talent development leaders can bridge the gap between experiential learning and hands-on knowledge application by evaluating employees on real-world challenges, similar to what they would be facing on the job."
He continued, "With iMocha Projects, talent leaders will be able to show true value gained via their L&D programs and measure training effectiveness objectively."
About iMocha
iMocha is a skills intelligence and assessment platform that enables talent leaders to make smarter talent decisions with its skills-first insights. 500+ organizations across 70+ countries trust the platform to acquire job-fit talent faster and to measure the ROI from their talent development initiatives. It empowers talent teams with the largest skill library with 2500+ assessments, AI-LogicBox (AI-based pseudo-coding simulator), AI-EnglishPro (AI-powered language analyzer), skill benchmarking, upskilling dashboard, talent analytics, proctoring, fraud detection, and custom assessment consulting, etc.
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