The ChallengeAssess Student Proficiency in Core Academic AreasThe Region 10 Education Service Center of the Texas Education Agency (TEA) wanted to create a high-quality, consistent and efficient system to measure student proficiency in the core academic subjects of language arts, math, science and social studies. Region 10 envisioned a virtual “best practices” assessment process accessible via the Internet and that contained a repository of thousands of assessment items that Texas educators could use, share and add to over time.

The SolutionWebCCAT (Web-Based Comprehensive Curriculum Assessment Tool)Vantage Learning teamed with the Region 10 Education Service Center in 2002 to create WebCCAT (Web-based Comprehensive Curriculum Assessment Tool), an online item banking, test creation, assessment and reporting system.

WebCCAT provides Texas educators with a repository of more than 33,000 questions mapped to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). Teachers can use these items to create online or offline (paper) assessments of student ability in the areas of language arts, math, science and social studies for grades 3-11. Spanish items are currently available for grades 3-5 in language arts and math and grade 5 in science; additional items (both Spanish and English and for various academic areas) are added to the item bank at regular intervals. Items include multiple-choice, open-ended response, passage, performance task, and short answer questions.

With WebCCAT, teachers and districts can customize the comprehensive

WebCCAT Overview

"The online student assessment component will

take us into a whole new era in diagnosing needs and giving instant feedback."

- Dr. Sandra Maddox, Deputy Executive Director for Instruction,Region 10 Education Service Center, TX

WebCCAT OverviewWeb-Based Comprehensive Curriculum Assessment Tool

The Challenge Assess Student Proficiency in Core Academic Areas

The SolutionWebCCAT (Web-Based Comprehensive Curriculum Assessment Tool)

The ResultThe Ability to Assess Student Performance and Conduct Intervention Strategies

WebCCAT

WebCCAT

WebCCAT

WebCCAT

Copyright © by Vantage Learning, 2006. Vantage Learning 110 Terry Drive, Suite 100, Newtown, PA 18940 Phone: 800.230.2213 Fax: 215.579.8391

About Vantage Learning

Delivering more than 193 million online test transactions last year, Vantage Learning is recognized as the leader in cost-effective, high volume, secure, scalable online assessment and instructional programs for K-12 and higher education. Leveraging technology such as artificial intelligence, natural language understanding, and web-based learning objects, Vantage provides educators with high-quality tools and resources that motivate students to learn and that create meaningful interactions between students, parents and teachers.

Acknowledged by industry leaders as the gold standard for scoring quality, consistency, reliability, and scalability of automated essay scoring using the patented IntelliMetric™ engine, Vantage Learning has received accolades ranging from the prestigious CODIE Award for best instructional technology to recognition by Eduventures as one of the eight most innovative educational technology companies.

Getting Started

• View an automated demo of WebCCAT by visiting www.webccat.com • Visit www.webccat.com and click on “Reference Materials” for

comprehensive program information • Contact Evelyn Thorpe of Region 10 at 972.348.1406 or

evelyn.thorpe@region10.org to schedule a live product demonstration

reports and convert the output to HTML or text-delimited files for output to other student records. This data helps educators pinpoint where students are doing well and where they need the most assistance, so intervention strategies can be applied to ensure student achievement. After selecting assessment items from the comprehensive item bank, teachers can print out paper tests, scan the answer sheets manually or upload the scanned files for immediate scoring, or have students take the test online, depending on the preference of individual educators, the level of service, and the technology available at each school.

Two service levels are available for WebCCAT – Silver and Gold. At the Silver service level, WebCCAT contains tools for searching, reviewing and managing both users and items for creating and printing custom tests to be administered offline as paper tests. Gold service level users enjoy all the benefits of the Silver service level and gain the ability to manage the entire

assessment, scoring and reporting process online.

The ResultThe Ability to Assess Student Performance and Conduct Timely Intervention StrategiesTo date, one-half million paper tests have been uploaded and scored by WebCCAT. Since the Gold service level became available in 2006, approximately 50 schools have already conducted nearly 2,500 online assessments during the first year of use. Both educators and students have embraced WebCCAT; teachers like using the program to create assessments to benchmark student performance and appreciate receiving immediate feedback on student progress, while students enjoy using the Internet to take the tests. As one teacher reports, “All I said was we will be doing WebCCAT today, turn your chair around and log in. They were already in their tests and ready to go by the time I started handing out their papers and clipboards!”

WebCCAT OverviewWeb-Based Comprehensive Curriculum Assessment Tool