ST. PAUL, Minn. (September 26, 2019) — Paradigm Education Solutions, a leader in educational technology, is partnering with Isograd™, a worldwide provider of digital skills assessment and TOSA™ certification, to offer innovative, digital first training and assessment courses for achieving in-demand competencies and skills mastery in Microsoft® Office (MSO) applications.
Through this strategic partnership, Paradigm is enhancing its revolutionary, cloud-based Cirrus™ learning environment with Isograd’s skills-based assessments to provide TOSA certification courses for Excel, Word and PowerPoint.
TOSA is the only standard to assess and certify application proficiency with a score that measures proficiency levels from beginner to expert. TOSA certifications are adaptive and quantify exactly what a student knows. Instead of simple pass or fail exams, TOSA provides a ranking level and a score from one to 1,000 to clearly identify the student’s true level of proficiency.
Colleges and universities adopting Paradigm’s new TOSA certification courses will be able to:
- Diagnose students’ skill levels in MSO applications
- Foster students’ achievement of the digital competencies needed in their fields of study and intended professions
- Provide adaptive, flexible and cloud-based learning solutions that students can conveniently access anytime, anywhere
- Deliver an internationally recognized credential that certifies the exact level of competency an individual possesses
“Certification makes professionals more appealing to employers and leads to enhanced career progression and job fulfillment. To ensure today’s students are positioned for these rewards, it is imperative that higher ed institutions provide students with more pathways to certification,” said Eric Cantor, president and chief executive officer at Paradigm.
Available this January, Paradigm’s TOSA certification courses will be seamlessly integrated into Cirrus, the only cloud-based training and assessment solution in the post-secondary market that allows students to work live in MSO applications.
“We’re thrilled about our partnership with Paradigm, because we share the same vision for better preparing students for the realities of the professional world,” said Mathieu Lillo, chief executive officer at Isograd North America. “The combination of Isograd’s assessment and certification capabilities and Paradigm’s contextualized, competency-based instruction and authentic, on-demand learning environment is exactly what students need to achieve the skills that today’s employers are desperately searching for.”
To learn more, visit ParadigmEducation.com and Isograd.com. To request an interview, contact Lara McLellan, vice president of marketing at Paradigm, at lara.mclellan@paradigmeducation.com or Terry James, vice president of North America marketing at Isograd, at terry.james@isograd.com.
About Paradigm Education Solutions
Paradigm is a leading provider of educational technology solutions that prepare traditional and post-traditional students to achieve the requisite digital literacy skills and career knowledge needed to enter the workforce, reskill, upskill and succeed as professionals. With a focus on contextualized, competency-based learning, Paradigm’s digitally driven solutions are flexible and adaptive to give students the power to learn anytime, anywhere. Visit ParadigmEducation.com to learn more.
About Isograd
Isograd provides TOSA (Test On Software Applications), the internationally recognized standard in digital skills assessment and certification. TOSA covers desktop applications (Microsoft Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Outlook), digital skills (DigComp and Adobe Creative Cloud) and programming languages (PHP, Java, C# and HTML5). More than 5,000 training centers, schools, universities and corporate employers across 30 countries use Isograd’s unique and innovative technology. For more information, visit Isograd.com.