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One of the holy grails for some players in the student learning outcomes movement is an assessment of an individual's skills or learning that employers might eventually accept in lieu of a college-awarded credential. Several major testing organizations have been building individualized versions of instruments that are most commonly used as institutional measures, and Thursday two of them -- ETS and the Council for Aid to Education -- announced that they were making those tests available to individuals through StraighterLine, which has made a name for itself to date by offering low-cost, online courses directly to students. Under the new arrangement, known as MyLine, beginning next fall students will be able to take ETS's Proficiency Profile and iSkills assessments or CAE's Collegiate Learning Assessment to try to prove their abilities to think critically, solve problems, or do the other things the tests aim to measure.
Officials of the companies -- which tend to sell their assessment products directly to institutions -- said via e-mail that StraighterLine was not the only channel they would use to offer the individualized versions of the assessments directly to students. "We want to deal more directly with learners in the future and we will," said Tom Ewing, a spokesman for ETS. "However, this agreement with StraighterLine allows us to gauge the interest and demand for such products and services, and to do so in cooperation with a company that already occupies that space."
