Taking Digital Learning to the Next Level

ACT delivers an authentic, effective, digital experience through BenchPrep’s enterprise learning platform.

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young woman on laptop smiling with ACT online prep logo, nonprofits industry marker, and 15 million learners information
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challenge

Lacking a Scalable Digital Solution

ACT is a well-known leader in educational assessment, with more than 2 million high schoolers taking the ACT exam in 2017. When it came to delivering an innovative and effective digital prep experience to its test-takers, the organization decided to look beyond its four walls.

Creating opportunities for every learner to succeed is core to ACT’s mission, and the nonprofit saw affordable, accessible digital prep as a way to level the playing field forall students. By offering test prep straight from the source, ACT also believed it could provide a more impactful and authentic approach than third-party options, helping students feel more prepared and less anxious for exam day.

Although ACT initially built a digital learning solution in-house, it recognized the need for a strong partner to expand its capabilities and reach. By incorporating a customizable learning platform that could scale with the organization, ACT saw an opportunity to deliver a better user experience to help each student perform their best.

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ACT gamification platform

SOLUTION

Authentic Content, Seamlessly Delivered

To bring that vision to life, ACT turned to BenchPrep.
 The rapidly growing company offers the industry’s first learner success platform, an enterprise level solution that focuses on the learning experience to improve engagement and readiness.

In early 2016, ACT and BenchPrep launched ACT Online Prep (AOP) to put a quality digital prep experience within reach for millions of high schoolers. AOP is delivered through BenchPrep’s fully white-labeled solution, allowing ACT to deliver personalized user pathways, adaptive learning, comprehensive lessons, and many other prep features that are fully branded ACT to ensure a trusted experience for users.

AOP offers nearly 2,500 prep items including actual retired test questions, abbreviated ACT subject tests, and a full-length practice test, which provides a predicted ACT score range while helping students hone in on areas where they need the most focus.

“We have been impressed by how closely BenchPrep is willing to work with us to refine the platform so students
can navigate large amounts of prep content easily. Information is presented to the user in a clean, thorough, straightforward way,” says Brandon Goldsmith, Senior Product Manager at ACT.

The turn-key platform has also proven to be easy to implement within their organization and without placing a burden on support organizations. “Architecturally BenchPrep is easy to install. This has made it a seamless process for us to introduce the platform to our key B2B partners, which allows them to leverage AOP for their learning programs too,” Goldsmith says.

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Easy access

AOP’s omni-channel capabilities help students to maximize their study time. Learners can log in by web, tablet, or mobile anytime, anywhere, and instantly pick up where they left off.

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Personalized study plans

Students can follow a structured study plan or use BenchPrep’s adaptive plan, which tailors goals for each student based on their strengths and weaknesses.

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Impactful remediation

Students rate their confidence level on each question and get an instant snapshot of their strengths and weaknesses, helping them determine where to focus their precious study hours.

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Real-time updates

A user dashboard helps students spend their time wisely with up-to-the minute information on days until the test, remaining study areas, and how much time each task will take.

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Learning made fun

With baked-in gamification and collaboration, time spent studying is less burdensome. Achievement badges, games, flashcards, and discussion groups keep students engaged and on the platform longer.

results

Delivering College Readiness at Scale

Since launching AOP, ACT continues to work with BenchPrep to improve access for all students while strengthening its own organization.

The partnership has allowed ACT to:

Customize the digital prep experience
and generate more revenue

Not only has BenchPrep built the AOP platform features around ACT’s needs, but it has also supported ACT in finding new ways to bring the product to learners. In addition to purchasing the prep program through ACT’s site, students can now buy AOP directly through BenchPrep and as part of ACT’s in-store prep pack, providing new revenue channels to support and expand the nonprofit’s mission.

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ACT platform layered on top of a young woman studying on a laptop

Deliver an enterprise-level
learning ecosystem

AOP’s combination of genuine content, on-demand access, and proven best practices for learning give ACT a powerful advantage over other prep tools when it comes to partnering with educational organizations. “With B2B partners, BenchPrep helps to tip the balance for us vs. third-party partners. No one else has been able to offer thesame structured approach to mastering the ACT,” Goldsmith says.

Make data-driven decisions

The BenchPrep platform requires very little from ACT to maintain and support, but delivers big when it comes to performance data. BenchPrep provides ACT with custom reports so it can see how students are using prep materials, which resources aremaking an impact, and where it can refine questions to improve learning outcomes. “BenchPrep’s data and analytics capabilities help us understand how students are using the product and which material wouldhelp them do better on the test,” Goldsmith says. “This insight is incredibly valuable and has allowed us to take ACT to the next level.”

based on user data, students who used AOP extensively scored 32 percent higher on practice exams than those who did not
Laptop and phone with ACT learning platform on their screens

“BenchPrep is great to partner with because they’re vested in your success... They’ve been very open and creative about finding new opportunities for ACT and AOP to be successful.”

Brandon Goldsmith
Senior Product Manager at ACT

From College to Careers; Leveraging a Strong Partnership

As a result of the successful partnership to build and deliver AOP, ACT also chose to work with BenchPrep to offer an interactive version of its WorkKeys Curriculum. The Curriculum aligns with the recently updated WorkKeys National Career Readiness Certificate assessment and credential

Powered by BenchPrep’s platform, WorkKeys helps learners identify their interests and build professional skills. The tool features customizable study schedules, intuitive user dashboards, engaging games, and quizzes to ensure learners master the skills they need for life on the job.

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