McGraw-Hill Education Announces ALEKS 360, Combining Powerful Artificial Intelligence and Personalized Learning with Interactive e-Books

NEW YORK, March 9 /PRNewswire/ -- For many students, two significant hurdles stand in the way of a college education: money and math. The cost of education continues to rise, and students are experiencing high failure and withdrawal rates in developmental math and college algebra/precalculus courses. To address these concerns, McGraw-Hill Education has introduced ALEKS 360, a total mathematics solution that combines a powerful artificial intelligence and personalized learning program with a fully integrated, interactive e-book in one affordable package.

"McGraw-Hill Education is committed to delivering digital learning solutions that adapt to each student's needs and abilities and improve student success in critical gateway courses," said Kurt Strand, president of McGraw-Hill Higher Education's Science, Engineering and Mathematics Group. "By integrating McGraw-Hill e-books directly into the ALEKS program, students will be able to learn effectively and affordably, and faculty will be able to reduce the expense of high failure and withdrawal rates."

ALEKS 360 acts much like a skilled human tutor, delivering precise assessments of students' math knowledge, guiding them in the selection of appropriate new study material, and recording their progress toward mastery of course goals. Through adaptive questioning, ALEKS accurately assesses a student's knowledge state and delivers targeted instruction on the exact topics a student is most ready to learn. College and university case studies have shown that ALEKS has increased pass rates by more than 20 percentage points versus traditional online homework systems, and by more than 30 percentage points compared to using a textbook alone.

The e-books featured within ALEKS 360 go beyond simple PDFs – they are high quality, interactive versions of their physical counterparts that offer robust virtual features such as highlighting and note-taking capabilities, as well as access to multimedia assets such as images, video, and homework exercises. E-books are accessible from ALEKS Student Accounts and the ALEKS Instructor Module for convenient, direct access.

ALEKS 360 launched this month and is available for use in summer classes. The initial e-books to be offered in ALEKS 360 include: Introductory Algebra, Second Edition, by Julie Miller and Molly O'Neill; Intermediate Algebra, Second Edition, by Miller and O'Neill; College Precalculus, Second Edition, by John W. Coburn; and College Algebra, Second Edition, by Coburn.

ALEKS was developed by ALEKS Corporation, a leader in the creation of Web-based artificially intelligent educational software. ALEKS assessment and learning technologies were originally developed by a team of cognitive scientists, mathematicians, and software engineers at the University of California, Irvine, with major funding from the National Science Foundation.

"ALEKS Corporation is committed to student success, and we are delighted to integrate some of the best mathematics textbooks available with the power of ALEKS. This is an enormous value for students and faculty and it couldn't be better timed," said Wil Lampros, president of ALEKS Corporation.

To experience ALEKS 360 for Introductory Algebra, please begin a free trial at http://www.aleks.com/free_trial/instructor and select "Beginning Algebra with ALEKS 360" for your course.

About McGraw-Hill Higher Education:

McGraw-Hill Higher Education, a unit of McGraw-Hill Education, is a premier provider of 21st century teaching and learning solutions for postsecondary and higher education markets worldwide. Through a comprehensive range of traditional and digital education content and tools focused on improving student learning outcomes, McGraw-Hill Higher Education empowers and prepares professionals and students to connect, learn and succeed in the global economy. McGraw-Hill Education, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE: MHP), has offices in 33 countries and publishes in more than 65 languages. Additional information is available at http://www.mheducation.com.

About The McGraw-Hill Companies:

Founded in 1888, The McGraw-Hill Companies is a leading global information services provider meeting worldwide needs in the financial services, education and business information markets through leading brands including Standard & Poor's, McGraw-Hill Education, and J.D. Power and Associates. The Corporation has more than 280 offices in 40 countries. Sales in 2009 were $5.95 billion. Additional information is available at http://www.mcgraw-hill.com.

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About ALEKS Corporation

ALEKS Corporation is a leader in the creation of Web-based artificially intelligent educational software. ALEKS assessment and learning technologies were originally developed by a team of cognitive scientists, mathematicians, and software engineers at the University of California, Irvine, with major funding from the National Science Foundation.  ALEKS is founded on groundbreaking research in mathematical cognitive science known as Knowledge Space Theory. Through adaptive questioning, ALEKS accurately assesses a student's knowledge state, and then delivers targeted instruction on the topics the student is most ready to learn.

ALEKS has been used by millions of students in more than 50 academic subjects ranging from Basic Math to Precalculus at thousands of institutions throughout the world. For additional information, visit http://www.aleks.com.

SOURCE McGraw-Hill Education