As I developed Innovation Assessments over the years, firstly I guess it was a hobby thing: I do enjoy coding and I liked having the ability to create apps for my teaching practice that did exactly as I wanted. I think my students liked having me create features that they requested and I know they got a chuckle at the bugs in early versions of software I wrote. Although selling subscriptions to the platform was always a goal for me to make a modest side income, I don’t think that motivated me as much as the former conditions.
If you’ve read my previous post about recently making Innovation a free platform, you probably sensed a tinge of regret in between the lines. I admit that there was. I don’t think I can compete against the big names out there in LMS and by now most teachers have invested a lot in their preferred LMS (usually Google Classroom). I will that seeing the new sign ups since this platform became free has given consolation that at least it’s being used.
Readers will notice that I am still making an effort in an entrepreneurial spirit. There is a commercial subscription tier. It’s this I want to present in this post.
Who needs a commercial license?
Innovation is free to individual teachers who are employed by a non-profit or not-for-profit organization. This would include public and private schools.
Subscribers who meet any of the following criteria need a paid commercial license for Innovation:
- You work for a for-profit company teaching or tutoring online or remotely.
- You are a “teacher-author” and you want to make your content at Innovation available for sale through third-party online marketplaces like TeachersPayTeachers.com or TeachSimple.com.
Ways to Earn from your Creativity here at Innovation
Like many teacher-authors, I sell my products at online marketplaces. I am grateful for the existence of these opportunities, so I am committed to respecting their terms and conditions of sale. I have been writing a set of apps purely for my own use over the past two years. These apps allow me to create digital products for selling at online marketplaces and which conform to their terms and conditions.
Subscribers to the commercial tier of Innovation will have access to these apps as well so that they can quickly generate products for posting at online marketplaces for sale.
Multiple-Choice Product Generator
Sharing multiple-choice test question banks can be challenging because there are many different formats out there for test generators. This is true here as well – Innovation as its own unique format.
Subscribers to the commercial license to Innovation can generate a multiple-choice product almost instantly. The product will consist of a zip file that will automatically contain:
- an HTML version of the questions for your customer to copy-paste into their own tests — this includes optionally associated images and sound files
- a plain text file version of the questions
- a passcode so that buyers can give their students access to the online version of the task
- a .CSV format file of the questions for easy import into a spreadsheet like Google Sheets or Excel.
- all of the associated sound and image files
One feature of the passcodes that is not currently available to commercial subscribers is import. If a buyer has one of my passcodes, they can use it to import the test bank they purchased right into their Innovation account. I figure commercial subscribers will not all want this, so it is disabled for them.
Here’s a free sample product for you to download and inspect. It was my final exam for my US History and Government class in 2022. I generated the product in under 3 seconds (not counting, of course, the time entering the questions…).
Passcodes
The passcode arose out of respect for the terms and conditions of teacher author marketplaces. They require, rightly, that no product sold at their site should require a registration to a third party site. The passcode lets you sell access to your Innovation content on InnovationAssessments.com in such a way that the buyer’s students can carry out the task without logging in or registering.
Here’s one you can try: USHIS 11 Final Exam, A11812Z-13YU-1QIH-17-JON [preview]
Passcodes work for:
- multiple-choice
- matching
- short answer, including pre-training for the AI grading assistant
- Etudes (these are video or PDF embeds with associated questions)
- Ventura games (Jeopary-like games)
Commercial tier subscribers have access to the app that generates passcodes. It is a very flexible system that lets you offer a preview that automatically limits access to the potential buyer.
Additional Terms of Service
Commercial license holders agree to a few additional terms:
- You attest that content of any type to which you are granting access is an original work and it does not infringe upon the Intellectual Property rights of others.
- You attest that content that is copyrighted and/or trademarked materials in your offering does not infringe upon the Intellectual Property rights of others. You have either received express permission to use such materials, or you hereby certify that the use of such materials is otherwise non-infringing, for example as a fair use.
- You agree not to post any advertising or solicit membership or subscription or attendance at any venue or event virtual or real that is not connected in a reasonable, direct, and supportive way with the course you are teaching.
- Innovation Assessments LLC does not provide payment processing services.