10/22/07 - v2
Summary of Current Work
Coy Ison General Partner & CIG
WorkEdge LP Group

To list all my current work projects would take more than two pages, I will focus on the following four areas of work.

  • WorkEdge LP Group
  • UTIPS/EDesk (Formative Testing)
  • S3 Testing (Summative Testing)
  • Annual Study List

WorkEdge LP Group
WorkEdge (WE) is a Limited Partner Group was formed in January 2005. The mission statement of the WorkEdge Group is "Quality is never an accident. It is always the direct result of sincere effort, intelligent decisions and skillful execution." The daily focus of the WE Group is to help states, organizations, districts and/or schools with online assessment software that can be correlated to state standards. The WE Group helps install, maintain, and/or support technical needs with an open source software package called EDesk.
Web site link(s) - http://www.workedge.com & http://www.edesk2.org

UTIPS/EDesk (Formative Testing)
In 1997, members of WE Group worked at the Southeast Education Service Center (SESC) in Price, Utah and developed a simple quiz test engine as part of a federal TIC Grant. The simple quiz engine was called Test Item Pool System (TIPS) to be used as a formative testing tool.
In 2002, SESC accepted a federal grant and state contract to upgrade TIPS to Utah Test Item Pool System (UTIPS). By 2003, UTIPS launched on a single server system for state wide K-12 use in Utah. By the end of the year 2003, UTIPS had delivered over 500,000+ formative tests to the students of Utah. In 2004, the need for a distributed model became necessary as UTIPS delivered over one million formative tests. In 2005, a new version of the software was released called EDesk II. A total of 12 servers were setup across Utah to support the growing needs of formative testing. In 2005 and 2006 each, UTIPS delivered over two million formative tests to the students of Utah.
Utah teachers use the 12,000+ Sample Test Item Pool questions in UTIPS for Science, Math and Language Arts quiz and test making. Teachers are finding UTIPS an effective instructional tool for use in the classroom.

  • EDesk includes more than just testing, it includes.
  • Teacher-Parent-Student Communication Interface
  • File Sharing
  • Calendar
  • Blog and More

EDesk is a generic name for the software, inside Utah it is referred to as UTIPS. EDesk is an open source program, meaning it is free for anyone to have and use at no cost. EDesk is now being used in many locations and states, including Utah, Arizona, Ohio, Hawaii, Indiana, Michigan, Massachusetts, Boston and others.
Web site link(s) - http://www.seschools.org - http://www.utips.org & http://www.edesk2.org

S3 Testing (Summative Testing)
S3 Testing is a new patent pending program that is a simple solution for secure testing process developed by the WE Group to deliver online summative assessment tests.
The S3 Testing system uses the web, a secure server, and a special client process to administrate summative assessments to students. The website is maintained by the owner of the assessment and is used to input, modify and view reports via the Internet.

S3 Testing system uniquely addresses the three key summative assessment problems:

  • High Cost – S3 Testing changes the process to low cost
  • High Touch – S3 Testing changes the process to low touch
  • High Security – S3 Testing keeps the process secure

Using S3 Testing for "High Stakes" assessments, such as high school graduation exams, district wide bench mark assessments or corporate skill certifications benefits an organization by streamlining the process of administering these types of examinations.
Web site link - http://www.s3testing.com

Annual Study List
At a technology conference recently, a keynote speaker challenged everyone to pick a topic(s) and study that topic(s) in depth for the whole year and then pick a new topic(s) next year, etc. I took the challenge serious and selected the following three topics.
2007
Social Networking
Mass Collaboration
Knowledge Management

In 2008, I've selected three new topics to study in depth.
2008
Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
Education Management Systems (EMS)
Cloud Computing