SBIR Phase I: An E-Learning Program for High School Equivalency (GED) and Remedial Education for Prisoners

SBIR第一期项目解决了为在押青少年和成年人提供持续、系统和安全的个人教育和培训机会的迫切需求，为在押人员提供重返社会所需的技能。它还将降低再犯率，增强他们的信心和为当地社区做出贡献的潜力。每年，有超过70万的州和联邦囚犯被释放回到他们的社区，他们往往没有比入狱时更好的技能。大多数囚犯没有基本的高中学历。该项目的目标是在监狱环境的限制下，提供最有效、安全和灵活的离线电子学习应用程序，以获得最需要的高中同等教育；涵盖教师指导和自主学习课程。在第一阶段完成后，惩教设施将有机会利用安全、易于管理的离线电子学习解决方案进行通识教育发展（GED）或任何其他数字格式的教育和培训。大量高质量的教学项目将被纳入该平台，最终将导致高中同等学历，并为解决技术和职业技能提供额外支持。第一阶段的项目创新主要围绕交付一个单一的、高度灵活的、安全的学习管理平台，在这个平台上，多个应用程序可以存储在一台服务器上。它将提供通识教育发展（GED）内容，并将可扩展，以纳入其他电子学习应用程序，包括那些可以解决累犯问题的应用程序。适应性强的学习管理平台将在专用服务器上自动提供和安装这些GED和非GED教育应用程序，无论是在现场的惩教设施还是在非现场的专用服务器网络上。每个监狱将自动定制不同的内容集，不需要外部互联网连接。另一个关键的创新是让电子学习系统在囚犯移动时跟踪他们的能力。他们将始终能够访问他们的具体内容和进度状态，因为他们的数据将集中托管在完全安全的监狱服务器上。他们的个人记录可以被确认并用于假释评估。通过提供统一的学生分析和对不同内容和教育应用程序供应商的学习结果的持续监控，该系统将提高离线学习的能力，使其成为数据驱动的努力，并将提供可与民用生活系统相媲美的个性化体验。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This SBIR Phase I project addresses the pressing need for providing incarcerated youth and adults with continual systematic and secure personal education and training opportunities, giving inmates the skills they need to productively re-enter society. It will also reduce recidivism rates, and increase their confidence and the potential for contributing to local communities. Every year, more than 700,000 state and federal prisoners are released back into their communities, often with no greater skills than when they went in. The majority of prisoners lack basic high school degrees. The goal of the project is to provide the most effective, secure and flexible offline e-Learning applications for acquiring high school equivalency, the area of greatest need, within the constraints of the prison environment; covering both instructor-led and self-directed learning sessions. At the completion of Phase I, correctional facilities will have an opportunity to utilize a secure, easy-to-administer, offline e-Learning solution for the General Education Development (GED) or for any other education and training in a digital format. A wealth of high-quality instructional programs will be incorporated into the platform that will ultimately lead to a high school equivalency diploma, and additional support to address technical and vocational skills.The Phase I project innovation is centered around the delivery of a single, highly-flexible, secure learning management platform, where multiple applications can be stored on a single server. It will provide the General Education Development (GED) content and will be expandable to incorporate additional e-Learning applications including those that can address recidivism. The adaptable learning management platform will automate the provisioning and installation of these GED and non-GED educational applications on private servers, either on-site at the correctional facility or on off-site private server networks. Different sets of content would be automatically customized for each prison, with no outside Internet connectivity required. Another key innovation will be the ability to have the e-Learning system follow the inmate as they are moved. They will always have access to their specific content and progress status as their data will be centrally-hosted on the fully secured prison servers. Their individual records can be confirmed and reviewed for parole evaluations. By providing uniform student analytics and continuous monitoring of learning outcomes with different content and educational application vendors, the system will advance the capability of offline learning to be a data-driven endeavor and will deliver a personalized experience comparable to systems in civilian life.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.