[November 20, 2007] ETS and Certiport to Collaborate on Digital Skills Solution Tweet (Wireless News Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Educational Testing Service (ETS) and Certiport announced an agreement to create a solution leveraging their assessment and certification programs around digital literacy and critical thinking with regard to information and communications technologies (ICTs). The two industry leaders expect the combined solution will help a wide variety of organizations hone the skills of current and prospective employees, creating a more capable and productive workforce. Under the agreement, Certiport and ETS will take the first steps toward jointly marketing their flagship products-Certiport Internet and Computing Core Certification (IC ) and ETS' ICT Literacy Workforce Assessment-to educational, government and corporate customers. According to David Saedi, Certiport's CEO, "ETS and Certiport recognize that education and workforce development organizations alike continue to grapple with the urgent issue of developing current and relevant technology literacy, and that, until now, this requirement has been compounded by the lack of a comprehensive, industry-supported solution." "To date," said Saedi, "the non-aligned and partial remedies offered by multiple providers often complicate and even delay decision-making processes around this critical issue. The collaboration between ETS and Certiport is the first alignment between two key industry leaders in pursuit of a more standardized and unified solution for ICTs-one that will gauge the true measure of an individual's level of digital literacy, analytical and critical capabilities as applied in work and learning environments." "This is a breakthrough agreement for each organization," said Chuck Cascio, vice president of ETS' Interactive Learning Division. "This agreement gives ETS the opportunity to partner with a world-class organization and obtain an established distribution channel for our ICT Literacy Workforce Assessment. It also allows us to bring our extensive core capabilities and creativity to this important initiative, adding another milestone to our broad-based education initiatives." Bundled products resulting from this collaboration can develop and validate learners and employees' basic computer hardware, software and Internet knowledge and skills using Certiport IC , and then measure their ability to apply critical thinking to use those skills in actual workplace situations using the ETS' ICT Literacy Workforce Assessment, the companies noted in a release. ((Comments on this story may be sent to [email protected])) ((Distributed on behalf of 10Meters via M2 Communications Ltd - http://www.m2.com)) ((10Meters - http://www.10meters.com)) Copyright 2007 Wireless News [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]