VitalSource has long been committed to increasing student success through easy access to affordable content. We also believe that if you can, you must improve learning for students and expand educational opportunities for all learners. Of course, we are not alone in this view and it is the reason many companies have built assessment-rich course materials. 

So why don’t most course materials have assessments? It is simply because creating assessments using human authors is very expensive and the list of courses with enough potential sales to justify that level of investment is limited. 

That’s why we created Bookshelf CoachMe®. Bookshelf CoachMe is a groundbreaking tool that adds relevant practice questions and knowledge checks aligned to learning objectives alongside thousands of etexts within the Bookshelf platform – at no additional cost to students or institutions. 

Recently recognised by the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) as a 2022 CODiE Award nominee for “Best Use of Artificial Intelligence in Ed Tech,” Bookshelf CoachMe leverages research-backed learning science principles to increase student engagement and academic achievement with etexts. 

Created based on the proven learning science principle known as the “Doer Effect,” the tool allows students to evaluate learning comprehension and identify areas in need of additional focus while they read and study. 

Using artificial intelligence (AI) for automatic question generation allows for unprecedented scaling of the learn-by-doing method known to cause the Doer Effect. The Doer Effect, a learning science principle first researched as part of Carnegie Mellon University’s Open Learning Initiative, proves practicing while reading causes better outcomes. VitalSource’s team of learning scientists replicated these findings in an award-winning research study, part of the company’s ongoing commitment to creating effective, research-backed learning environments. 

Bookshelf CoachMe’s AI-generated questions pass rigorous quality assurance requirements before being presented to students. Research led by VitalSource’s learning scientists and published in peer-reviewed journals has validated the quality and effectiveness of automatic question generation, comparing AI-generated questions to human-authored ones across engagement, difficulty, and persistence and finding no perceived difference.  

At our beta launch in January, Bookshelf CoachMe was enabled for thousands of etexts across a wide range of disciplines with more than 2 million practice questions created and powered by AI technology. 

We are pleased with the initial success of Bookshelf CoachMe and the fact that students across the world can access this free tool that harnesses the power of learn-by-doing.