Likelihood to Recommend I think it is well suited for K-12 schools, especially for tracking student growth over time. The ability to easily upload state assessment results and produce pre-built reports provides teachers actionable data. The online assessment system is more appropriate for secondary (grades 6-12) students in our district due to the types of assessments our elementary (K-5) students complete. I have some experience with other systems and think that the illuminate software offers more flexibility in the types of data that can be stored.
Read full review I love that MasteryConnect already has hundreds of standards built-in, like the ACT readiness and socioemotional learning standards my after-school program uses. I think MasteryConnect would be harder to implement for an educational institution using learning standards not already in MasteryConnect. Also, MasteryConnect does not function as a grade book for someone looking for that kind of solution.
Read full review Pros Easy to use Item banks Outstanding customer service. Reasonable pricing models. Integrates well with student info systems. Read full review Learning standards are already included in the software. Allows educators to track students who are near-mastery and at-mastery Color-coding system is easy to understand. Read full review Cons Tech support seemed good but our main issue was never resolved. We received attention and someone was working on our issue, but they could never figure out why our student count was off for 1 grade level even though they said our data looked great. The customized reports were powerful, but there was so much to learn for the average administrative user, like a principal, to get the detailed data they need. You would have to have a dedicated person to create customized reports. At some point, our representative just stopped calling and there was no further contact. Then our rep left the company and the new rep only sent one email notifying us of the change. That was almost a year ago. Read full review I don't like that we have to make separate trackers for each sub-strand of math on the ACT. Sometimes it is difficult to find the assessments I am trying to score within trackers. I wish I had more support on how to use the data in MasteryConnect. Read full review Usability Illuminate DnA is a very usable system. A few items to learn and set up can be a bit time-consuming. However, once set up it is easy to use and powerful for a school that staff can master quickly. It has more features then we actually use but I hope we will over time.
Read full review Support Rating Our issue was never resolved so that we could use the software to produce accurate reports. Their tech department looked into the issue several times and could never figure out why our student was off and then they just closed the case. They confirmed we were performing the correct steps to load the data and they confirmed our data looked accurate. Great, but again why was our student count off?
Read full review On-boarding was fine and sufficient, but we haven't really heard from MasteryConnect since then. I haven't reached out to them, either, though.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Illuminate DnA offers more flexibility and additional features that our previous Data Director system offered. We were looking for a system that offered an online assessment portal and the ability to create elementary standard-based report cards when we selected the illuminate DnA software. We were impressed with the ability to easily create custom reports and liked the comprehensive student profile page.
Read full review MasteryConnect is a more affordable option for our medium-sized nonprofit. MasteryConnect fits our needs without being "too much" software. Illuminate and PowerSchool are more built for large school systems while we are a standalone organization with only about 250 students.
Read full review Return on Investment Better handle on student achievement. Clarity around achievements on specific standards. Read full review MasteryConnect has allowed our organization to track student learning data weekly for the first time. We spend less than 10 minutes per week inputting student achievement data. We are able to more quickly decide which skills to reteach because of MasteryConnect. Read full review ScreenShots