Assessment Systems Corporation's CEO, Nathan Thompson PhD, Selected to Speak at the 2020 EdTech and Computational Psychometrics Summit (ECPS)

    ST. PAUL, MN, November 21, 2020 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Assessment Systems Corporation (ASC; www.assess.com) is pleased to announce that its CEO, Nathan Thompson, PhD, been selected as a speaker at the Association of Test Publisher's inaugural virtual EdTech and Computational Psychometrics Summit (ECPS): Building Equitable Pathways to Achievement. The Summit will be a two-day virtual event taking place on December 3rd from 11:00 AM EDT to 3:45 PM EDT, and December 4th from 11:00 AM EDT to 3:45 PM EDT.

The Summit will feature invited speakers from high-profile educational institutions and high-tech companies including Duolingo, Schmidt Futures, Institute of Education Sciences (IES), Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and more. The primary focus of the Summit will be on how rapid societal changes are accelerating the need for equitable access to education and assessment. By broadening access to education and professional opportunities, applications in Al, machine learning, and theory-driven computational psychometrics are allowing assessment providers to better serve the wide-ranging needs of learners.

"This virtual event will enable educators, administrators, educational researchers, policy makers and technologists to see how the future of education is unfolding as we prepare for a new day in education," remarked ATP CEO William G. Harris, Ph.D.

The Summit will be kicked off with a Keynote address from Luis von Ahn, CEO and Co-founder of Duolingo, the most popular language-learning platform, and the most downloaded education app on the App Store and Google Play. Ahn has been named one of the 10 Most Brilliant Scientists by Popular Science Magazine, one of the 50 Best Brains in Science by Discover, one of the Top Young Innovators Under 35 by MIT Technology Review, one of the 100 Most Innovative People in Business by Fast Company Magazine, and in 2018 won the Lemelson-MIT prize.

Dr. Thompson will speak on a panel entitled "A Conversation with R&D Leaders: Making Learning and Testing Better with A.I." He has a deep interest in using AI and automation to improve educational assessment, by impacting not just the test that the student sees, but the entire test development process. This interest was driven by his experience at a certifying agency and three testing services providers, as well graduate level teaching. He has spearheaded the development of software such as Iteman (automated report generation classical test theory), Xcalibre (automated report generation item response theory), TestAssembler (automated test assembly), and FastTest (item banking and adaptive testing). He also maintains a research program on adaptive testing and machine learning in assessment. Additionally, Dr. Thompson is a co-founder and Membership Director for the International Association for Computerized Adaptive Testing. His goal is to enable all organizations to implement modern psychometric methods, thereby improving assessment, and the millions of decisions that are made each day based on assessments.

Registration for this event is open at: http://www.globalatpevents.com/ecps/register.aspx

About Assessment Systems Corporation
Assessment Systems Corporation (ASC: assess.com) has been a leader in the assessment industry since 1979, providing both world-class software for test development, secure delivery, and psychometric analytics, as well as extensive consulting services for testing organizations. ASC's co-founder, Dr. David Weiss, is considered the father of computerized adaptive testing (CAT), and ASC was the first company to offer item banking and adaptive testing software to the public, in the early 1980s. ASC focuses on organizations that require high quality and high security from their exams, across industries such as certification, licensure, higher education, K-12 education, and pre-employment testing. ASC drives innovation internationally, partnering with Ministries of Education in countries as diverse as Iceland, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, and Botswana. Follow us on LinkedIn, or sign up for a free account in our test development platform Assess.ai.

About ATP
Established in 1992, The Association of Test Publishers (ATP) is an international, non-profit, trade organization representing providers of tests and assessment tools and/or services related to assessment for clinical, occupational, certification, licensing, educational or other similar uses. For more information on ATP visit www.testpublishers.org.

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