Education & Distance Learning Enthusiasts- Prometric Buys Stake In ExamSoft, Expanding Electronic Testing Reach

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Prometric Buys Stake In ExamSoft, Expanding Electronic Testing Reach - Brief Article

Educational Marketer - March 5, 2001

With an eye on the future growth of electronic testing in several markets, Baltimore-based testing company Prometric, which is part of Thomson Learning (Stamford, CT), has acquired a 20% ownership stake in 3-year-old ExamSoft Worldwide (Deerfield Beach, FL), a provider of software designed to enable secure testing on personal computers and laptops.

The key to the deal was ExamSoft's capability to provide secure testing on laptops, said Jeffrey Cohen, Prometric's vice president. "We want to provide solutions that make testing easier and quicker to get results," Cohen said. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Thomson Corp. (Toronto) bought Prometric in January last year for $775 million (EM, Feb. 7, 2000) as part of Thomson's strategy to push deeper into the e-learning space. Thomson folded the company into its Thomson Learning division. Prometric provides technology-based testing and assessments for certification in the information technology industry and for professional licensing. In the academic sphere, the company provides its testing services for distance learning institutions and for GMAT, GRE and English as a foreign language exams for its principle client, the Educational Testing Service (Princeton, NJ), Cohen said.

With ExamSoft's electronic bluebook capabilities, Prometric plans to push further into the college distance learning space and eventually into the K-12 testing market. The company will start with the law school market, where ExamSoft products already are in use.

The portability and security of ExamSoft's software make it particularly applicable to large-scale testing, where many students are involved, Cohen said. Prometric's tests currently are administered on computers in the company's exam centers. With ExamSoft software, students could take an exam wherever they have a personal computer or laptop.

George Wolf, executive vice president of ExamSoft, said that the company's products help answer one of the challenges of electronic testing. The test-taker can get the test via the Internet, but he does not have to stay on the Internet to take the test as with traditional online testing. The software can be installed on a traditional computer, but it was designed to be used on laptops, he said.

Contact: Prometric can be reached at (443) 923-8000 or www.prometric.com. ExamSoft can be reached at (954) 429-8889 or www.examsoft.com.

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