Following the launch of Aptem Checkpoint, the first of our Aptem Enhance products, we will continue to expand our offering of AI-driven product capabilities. They aim to replace high-effort admin tasks with cheaper, faster and higher-quality technology solutions. Our roadmap will be updated with specific new enhancements as they are developed.

Aptem Enhance will include features such as:

• Providing 24/7 additional learner and tutor support.
• First-cut marking on all assessments.
• Review summarisation.
• Situational judgement.

We are actively developing a new process for maintaining compliance document templates, by dissociating them from specific programmes and sharing them from a central location. This will reduce the administrative burden on our customers and allow for easier changes in the future. We are also considering ways to allow customers to control which learners see compliance document changes, based on the applicable funding rules.

By leveraging large language models and built-in knowledge of learner context, this assistant aims to give learners the answers they need, regardless of tutor availability or bandwidth. Using this approach, we hope to give learners more ownership of their learning journey, maximise learning momentum, and reduce the administrative burden for tutors to respond to repetitive questions. 

With this feature, we hope to allow tutors to work more efficiently, while maintaining the highest standards of marking quality. Tutors can focus on providing in-depth, personalised feedback to learners by adding comments where the feedback applies within the uploaded evidence, without leaving the Aptem system.  

We plan to present realistic scenarios in the context of the learner’s employment and programme of study. This will empower apprentices to apply theoretical understanding to the skills and behaviours they are working towards, fostering a deeper understanding of on-the-job challenges. This supports the goal of aligning apprenticeship training and real-world requirements, while also providing tutors with a comprehensive understanding of each learner’s progress.  

With Review summarisation, we hope to eliminate the trade-off between valuable conversations and accurate record-keeping, by automatically generating the key discussion points and themes from each Review. As the conversation progresses, crucial feedback and action points will be documented, helping to improve engagement, boost accuracy and shorten feedback loops.

We have added a Communications Connector with Teams that allows tutors to schedule / join online events in Teams directly from Aptem. This feature is important for administrators who are responsible for scheduling online meetings – it enables them to easily find and schedule online meetings, ensuring that upcoming online meetings can take place as planned. With this update, Admins can seamlessly integrate the scheduling process with Teams, enhancing collaboration and convenience for all users. Find out more. 

Aptem Checkpoint is designed to supplement one-to-one discussions, equipping tutors with invaluable insight into where their support is most needed, without requiring any additional time to prepare materials or schedule extra conversations.

• Aptem Checkpoint offers a library of questions and answers mapped to the IfATE apprenticeship standards KSBs.
• Answering these questions successfully provides an impartial indicator of learner success at EPA. Incorrect responses guide learners on how to improve.
• Lack of engagement with these checkpoints, or poor scores, indicates intervention is required, reducing drop-out or out of funding.
• This is a flexible feature and can be used during onboarding to assess starting points, throughout a learner journey to assess progress, and pre-Gateway to assess preparedness for EPA.

We are further developing Aptem Assess to provide additional learning support resources, accessible via the resource centre, that can be used to modify a learner’s learning plan.

We are enabling users to generate reports containing data from custom review questions, through OData.

This improvement will greatly reduce the administrative effort required by customers to collect key details from reviews, while also providing them with the data needed to satisfy reporting requirements.

Administrators now have the option to delete files that are uploaded by the user and stored in their ‘Documents’ area in Aptem.

Release details on document deletion

Aptem is regularly updated to comply with the latest apprenticeship funding rules and enhance user experience.

Further details will follow here when version 1 of the 2024/25 rules is published.

Draft 2024/25 Apprenticeship funding rule changes

Latest Aptem Assess enhancements include:

• Allowing cognitive assessments to be assigned to learners at any point in their learning journey, providing customers with more flexibility. Learners can also be reassessed as needed.
• Providing more comprehensive reporting for near-threshold learners who may require further review to determine their ALS needs.
• Introducing quality scoring of assessments to identify misuse, disengagement, or unusual behaviour that may impact accuracy.
• Allowing extraction of all data associated with Aptem Assess cognitive assessments via OData, resulting in enhanced reporting capabilities.

Administrators can now add custom withdrawal reasons to the ‘Withdrawal from learning’ tracker. This means greater insights into reasons for withdrawal, whilst still outputting the correct ESFA withdrawal reason in the ILR batch file.

Guide on configuring custom withdrawal reasons