Tk20 Announces HigherEd™ v3.0

Tk20, a leading provider of assessment and reporting solutions for Colleges and Universities, today announced HigherEd v3.0 at the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) 57th Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. HigherEd v3.0 is a complete, end-to-end solution for managing unit, college and university performance with customization and sophisticated reporting in one cost-effective package. Expanding beyond their standards-based assessments, electronic portfolios, and NCATE accreditation support, Tk20 adds centralized student advisement, field experience, job placement and document management capabilities to HigherEd v3.0. The company customizes the installation of the system to operate within each college’s existing processes. This ensures that the unique needs of each unit are met while speeding system adoption by university administration, faculty and students.

“In my view, the most important aspect of Tk20’s HigherEd system is the fact that the technology is actually serving as the critical bridge to connect NCATE standards to educational practice,” said Dr. John Jones, Assistant Vice President of Academic Affairs/ Assessment and Accountability at Fort Valley State University. “Tk20 has enabled us to easily integrate standards into the development of our unit assessment system. We are elated with the system and have made tremendous progress in satisfying NCATE standard II in a very short period of time.”

HigherEd is a licensable system, meant to be owned by colleges. “Why should a University be forced to put their private data – one of their most important assets – in a system owned by someone else?” said Bhupi Bhasin, Tk20 President. “We find that most universities want to retain control over the security of their own data – and with Tk20, that’s not a problem.”

“Tk20 has provided us with outstanding support throughout the installation and deployment of the HigherEd system,” said Dr. Julius Scipio, Dean, College of Arts, Sciences and Education at Fort Valley State University. “Anytime you introduce a new system to administrators, faculty and students, it is critical that they receive solid training and support to help them through the initial learning curve and to ensure proper use of the system over the long-term. Tk20 has been there with us every step of the way to ensure successful implementation and deployment of the system, and to provide on-site user training to our personnel. . . we could not be more pleased.”

HigherEd is completely customizable to support the conceptual framework, artifacts, standards, rubrics, portfolios, transition points, surveys, and reports of the college. The system imports data from Student Information Systems such as BANNER to automatically setup courses for instructors. Instructors can communicate with their students, post assignments, give quizzes, complete standards-based assessments, manage grades, post syllabi and other documents, and manage teaching assistants – all from one location.

This latest release of HigherEd includes new capabilities for centralized student advisement that is immediate and informed. The system gives academic advisors complete information about the candidates’ academic progress and their program requirements. Advisors can easily obtain test scores, certifications, transcripts, courses and detailed information about the candidates’ assessments and match them with program requirements. By having instant access to all the information they need, advisors can improve accuracy and make informed determinations concerning further requirements – providing real benefits to both faculty and students.

With Tk20 HigherEd, all aspects of field experience artifacts can be customized and the data collected is recorded, categorized, and aggregated for reporting. Field experience artifacts are set up to document the type of activity, location, the name of the cooperating teacher and the university supervisor. They can also record demographics and composition of the students in the class, the number of hours, the subjects, and any other relevant information. Candidates can record ongoing journals about their field experience and get feedback from cooperating teachers and university supervisors regarding their performance. Completed field experience artifacts can be attached to course and program portfolios – and every aspect of the experience can be used for reporting.

HigherEd’s new Document Room provides a central repository for storage, organization and sharing of all institutional documents in one location. Faculty can upload documents to the Document Room and share them with each other. The Document Room includes Focus Areas to let you group documents for a common purpose. The Document Room can also be used as an exhibit room for demonstrating documents during accreditation reviews.

The HigherEd software license, customization services, deployment and support are offered in one complete package at a price of $10,000. This one-time fee includes all customization, reporting support and maintenance upgrades for the life of the system. Students are assessed a one time fee of $100 for use of the system, typically for seven years.

About Tk20

Tk20, Inc. was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Austin, Texas. The professionals at Tk20 understand education – and we understand enterprise computing. That’s why our customers repeatedly report that we offer the most complete assessment and reporting solution for colleges and universities available today. For more information about Tk20 HigherEd, please visit us online at www.tk20.com.

Contact

Melissa Garland
Director of Marketing
mgarland@tk20.com
P: (512) 401-2000 ext. 809
F: (512) 692-9108