MONTEREY, Calif. (Map) - MONTEREY, Calif., March 26 /PRNewswire/ -- As schools increasingly move to online assessments, technology and assessment coordinators are seeking security measures that ensure a protected online testing environment. CTB/McGraw-Hill's Writing Roadmap(TM), its groundbreaking Web-based classroom writing assessment that has been demonstrated to improve student performance, meets the needs of educators with online security features that enable teachers to administer and monitor classroom writing exams with confidence.

Writing Roadmap is a powerful online essay assessment system using artificial intelligence to assess the writing skills of students in Grades 3- 12. It includes the following new security features and product enhancements:

-- Lockdown student browser: Teachers may choose to have students respond in a secure setting which locks students in the program once they log in and disables access to other applications on their computer -- "Asterisk" technology: Automatically flags certain scores that might benefit from teacher review -- New prompts: 16 additional new writing prompts across four styles - Narrative, Informative/Expository, Descriptive, and Persuasive -- Improved scoring algorithm: 4, 5, and 6-point rubric scales that meet psychometric standards for classroom assessments

"Writing Roadmap is recognized as a leading online writing assessment solution that helps improve student performance. We continually incorporate valuable feedback from teachers and administrators to maintain the highest levels of quality and flexibility in this assessment, as well as in all of our products and services," said

Ellen Haley, president of CTB/McGraw-Hill. "These enhancements provide important security provisions to Writing Roadmap while giving teachers expanded abilities to develop custom tests and use new scoring features."

Writing Roadmap covers a range of essay styles with 66 classroom writing prompts, 10 training prompts and the ability for teachers to craft custom essay topics. The application contains online tools -- Tutor, Hint, Grammar Tree, and Thesaurus-to provide students with feedback as they go, while automatically generated scores enable students to make immediate revisions. Essays are evaluated along six important writing dimensions-Ideas and Content, Organization, Voice, Word Choice, Conventions, and Fluency. Graphic online reports provide an analytic roadmap to guide future instruction and move students toward the goal of achieving state standards for writing.

For more information on Writing Roadmap, call 800.538.9547 or visit www.CTB.com/WritingRoadmap.

About CTB/McGraw-Hill

As the nation's leading publisher of standardized and standards-based achievement tests for pre-school, elementary, middle, high school, and adult education, CTB/McGraw-Hill LLC offers a broad range of assessments, software and services. CTB/McGraw-Hill LLC is part of the Assessment and Reporting group of McGraw-Hill Education, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE: MHP). McGraw-Hill Education is a leading global provider of instructional, assessment and reference solutions that empower professionals and students of all ages. Additional information is available at www.CTB.com.

Media Inquiries Kelley Carpenter Director, Communications (831) 393-7196 kelley_carpenter@mcgraw-hill.com