Brassring, formerly from IBM and part of the Kenexa Talent Acquisition Suite, and now sold by Infinite Computer Solutions, is an enterprise grade ATS and onboarding solution. It allows companies to find the right talent, track and manage candidates, and use candidate data to spot trends within the applicant pool.
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Unique Learning System
Score 8.5 out of 10
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Unique Learning System (ULS) is a special education solution that supports students with disabilities from Pre-K through transition. It provides differentiated, standards-aligned lessons in ELA, math, science, social studies, and life skills with built-in assessments, progress tracking, and automated differentiation.
Kenexa is is well suited for any organization that has more than 3000 employees globally. I would not recommend this to startups or a growing organization with less than 3000 employees. But once you cross this number, Kenexa becomes useful and is a brilliant tool for global operations - recruiting. I would recommend this tool to any organization that has offices in many countries/geographies as well.
I have actually recommended it to another teacher in a different district for her autism program since she could level and pace it easily and also easily collect IEP data without stressing out her students with extra work. Unique Learning System is also a good program for our autism program because it is consistent with all core subjects, making is very routine based.
Kenexa allows Boolean key word search within a particular requisition so it makes sifting through a high number of applicants manageable and effective
Kenexa can be tailored to meet individual business needs. During the time we’ve had Kenexa here I’ve used it in support of a few different business segments and for each the way the system was used to “position” candidate statuses have varied based on the individual need of the business. One example is when interviewing a high volume of applicants internationally, we were able to send qualified applicants through to the “event manager” and it would enable the candidate to select his/her interview date/time based on previously submitted options inputted by our Kenexa users.
Kenexa allows one to customize and score questions for each open requisition that applicants complete as they apply. The system then sorts applicants according to the score of candidate answers allowing for easy sorting of top qualified candidates.
Data tracking and progress reports - Unique Learning System's Polaris feature is a user-friendly, simple way to track and monitor progress towards learners IEP goals. When creating a roadmap that follows a learner's IEP, you input data such as learning profiles and benchmark assessments and rubrics that then produce goal suggestions. You can craft your own goal, use a suggested goal, or choose a goal from the goal library. It gives you a great idea of what goals to target based on learner needs and progress. Entering data is super easy, just a date and a data point, and a graph generates for you. From there, it will show the data trend and flag it for you when it's at risk. It is also easy to add an intervention. Quarterly, I use the progress report feature to generate a report that provides me with the graphs that I use to put into IEP writer.
Curriculum pacing - My school utilizes Unique Learning System for our daily instruction. Unique Learning System provides pacing guides with what to teach and when. Everything is standards aligned and all of the lesson plans have ways that you can differentiate already built into the plans as well as an easy to use, structured/routine based set up that makes daily lessons predictable for learners to increase engagement.
N2Y - My learners love News To You! This provides children with access to informational text. We use it as a "fun Friday" read every week. We read the article in class, watch videos, answer questions, and typically do an activity to go along with it. The kids look forward to it every week, and also enjoy the Joey's Locker games that go along with the articles. They have a new feature to be able to assign activities that go along with the article which is really nice because I assign them as supplemental activities to go along with what we are learning about in class!
BrassRing's application system for candidates is prone to freezing and crashing in the middle of the application causing potential candidates to lose all progress. I filled out the application myself and witnessed these issues first hand, on top of several complaints I received via phone and email from candidates attempting to apply via the BrassRing service. Also, the Parsing system within the application is not capable of pulling any meaningful information out of text documents.
Each user must be added to each job in order for that job, and the candidates in it, to show up in relevant searches. This becomes a problem when a new team member joins the account and needs access to all of the previous openings just so that they can find candidates already in the system. The account I was working on involved literally hundreds of new openings a month, meaning that any movement of personnel on or off the account would mean having to update potentially thousands of old positions just to allow them to be able to mine the ATS for candidates. I don't see any particular reason why someone with access to the system should have to be given access to each individual job. If a particular position needs to be kept confidential for whatever reason then that individual position should be able to be set to only show to authorized recruiters. The rest of the positions should automatically be searchable by anyone with appropriate access to the ATS to allow for basic level candidate mining and movement.
Unique Learning System's materials in the science and social studies areas aren't "fluffy" as other areas, but they are continuously adding materials
The layout of the website isn't the most user friendly, but most teachers are able to navigate easily after an initial training
The administrator side of things isn't super straightforward, reports can be confusing to find/run, but the one on one meetings always provide clarity.
I am confident that the Kenexa product will continue to evolve to meet the needs of our business in an ever changing work environment. The affiliation with IBM also plays a factor as we have a long standing successful relationship with IBM products. We will be looking to integrate other Kenexa products in the near future to streamline our HR processes.
I appreciate all the various resources that Unique Learning System has to offer. However, due to my limited interaction with other resources similar to Unique Learning System I do not know enough to compare it against other programs. I also am not a person in charge of renewing Unique Learning System for my organization.
I feel like I am pretty decent with computers and systems. It was fairly easy to use it after about a week or two . But I have seen people struggle with it as well as some people not use it at all. It can be slow at times and not work at times. But Its a fine system.
There is a lot of content in Unique Learning System. It can sometimes be time consuming to navigate through everything. I appreciate the depth and breadth of the resources, but it can also be tough to use when I need a worksheet or packet for my students. The use of Unique Learning System on the computer is great, but my students seem to learn best when they have a pen and paper in front of them.
It is a very basic system. It may be OK for entry level positions only. The practice of removing CVs while the recruitment process is ON is disturbing and there is no one to explain or to inform why it is being done. Even a routine mail is not sent to the client/consultant. I am surprised how this system is continuing without too many complaints.
SF ATS was not available at the time and Taleo was thought to be too expensive. In retrospect, given the amount of customization and leveraging of other vendor technology for things like analytics I suspect any cost advantage we realized evaporated
We viewed Encore by TeachTown. The product seemed to be a notch above Unique Learning System and included workbooks and other books but was very expensive. The downfalls of Encore was that it did not include the Profile Assessments like Unique Learning System and also the monthly checkpoints which are very valuable.
Ease of planning is #1. I am able to plan an entire lesson or a week's worth of lessons during my 30-minute planning time.
Data that is collected for IEPs is so valuable and reports are parent-friendly.
Students are able to work on the alternative path toward a diploma because this curriculm is covering all of the standards they need to see in order to earn their diploma.
