Maplesoft, a provider of software products for technical education and research, has announced an update to its popular testing and assessment tool, Maple TA. Maple TA is a powerful online testing and assessment system designed especially for courses involving mathematics, making it ideal for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses. This new version includes a wide range of features and improvements that have been requested by customers.
The new edition provides enhancements to both questions and assignments. Instructors can now include videos directly inside any type of Maple TA question type, including mathematical free-response, essay, multiple choice, and adaptive questions. Instructors can also require students to upload electronic documents to complete or supplement an assignment, such as digital images of paper-based assessments or rough work done during a test. Other enhancements to questions and assignments include password protection of assignments to provide increased security without increasing logistical overhead in high-stakes testing, and more targeted feedback on multipart questions.
Maple TA 2016.1 also contains a substantial number of enhancements across several areas of the product providing improved efficiency, connectivity, and workflow for instructors and students. For example, connectivity with course management systems through the Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) standard now includes automatic grade syncing of manually updated grades. Updated results are automatically pushed to the gradebook of the course management system, such as Blackboard, Canvas, Moodle, or Brightspace, with no explicit action required on the instructor’s part. For non-English speakers, Maple TA language packs are now available for the first time in Italian, and updates are available for Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, and Spanish.
‘Feedback from STEM educators has been a driving force behind Maple TA from its conception, and this release is a direct response to our customers’ requests and suggestions,’ says Paul DeMarco, Director of Development for Maple and Maple TA ‘With the new edition, all instructors and students stand to benefit directly from the improvements suggested by other users.’
Maplesoft also released a new version of the Maple TA MAA Placement Test Suite (PTS), which includes the same enhancements as the Maple TA release. The PTS product offers the renowned placement tests from the Mathematical Association of America in the online testing environment of Maple TA.
