Online course provider ALISON has been chosen as one of six winners of this year’s World Innovation Summit for Education Award.
The Galway-based for-profit social enterprise was chosen by a panel of international education experts from hundreds of entries. The company will receive its prize at the 2013 WISE Summit in Doha at the end of October.
The WISE (World Innovation Summit for Education) Awards recognise organisations for innovation in education across non-governmental organisations, charity groups, cultural institutions and the private sector.
ALISON’s (Advance Learning Interactive Systems Online) education and training model allows all learning, assessment, testing, and verification service to be accessed by anyone, anywhere for free. Its commercial model is based on advertising and certificate sales.
Some 150,000 new users sign up with ALISON every month for free courses in over 35,000 topics and over 500 courses with a focus on practical skills ranging from touch typing to English grammar, Business & Finance, and Psychology.
ALISON CEO Mike Feerick said: "Winning this prestigious award is a terrific achievement for all involved with ALISON. There is a lot of hype about free learning worldwide but clearly the sustained strength, growth and popularity of ALISON is what is earning us the recognition as one of the true leaders for the future of global education. We are very grateful to our millions of learners worldwide who have made this possible."
ALISON accreditation uses ‘flash-tests’ where certificate holders can be tested at any time. Learning achievement is validated using a certificate or diploma and test structure, with courses published under either restricted licence or Creative Commons.
Course materials are provided by corporations such as Microsoft and the British Council on a wide variety of subjects from IT to business to languages.
ALISON’s other accolades include a UNESCO Award for Innovation in ICT for Education.
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