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Altus Assessments
and ProFitHR:
Testing Success
Innovative character tests designed by
McMaster professors are helping medical
schools choose and train the best
candidates are now licensed by two private
companies.
Altus Assessments provides research-
based, reliable and validated methods
for identifying, selecting, and nurturing
exceptional learners. A key assessment is
Casper, an online situational judgment test
that presents applicants with a series of
hypothetical scenarios that gauge non-
academic skills, such as professionalism,
communication, ethics, empathy,
collaboration, and motivation. Casper
has been in use by McMaster’s School of
Medicine since 2010.
When other schools expressed interest in
using Casper, founders Prof. Kelly Dore and
Prof. Harold Reiter, with help from McMaster
University’s Industry Liaison Office (MILO)
and Innovation Factory, commercialized the
concept.
Now, Altus assessment tools are in use at
more than 400 schools around the world
and taken by more than 200,000 applicants
a year, including more than 90 per cent of
all those applying to Canadian and American
medical schools.
an investment committee of entrepreneurs, Altus recently acquired One45, an
investors and sector experts, all external to the assessment platform start-up out of the
university, will make investment decisions. University of British Columbia, and now has
140 employees in Canada and Australia.
in addition, Hamilton’s regional accelerator,
innovation Factory, is managing a $6-million Another test used at McMaster’s medical
investment from the Canadian government to school since 2004, the Multiple Mini
accelerate the commercialization of life science Interview (MMI), was commercialized
innovations through the Southern ontario through ProFitHR, located at McMaster
Pharmaceutical and Health innovation Ecosystem Innovation Park. The MMI uses many short
(SoPHiE). as a result, 45 ontario-based life independent assessments, typically in a
sciences companies work directly with an academic timed circuit, to obtain an aggregate score of
each candidate’s skills. Today, MMI is used
or hospital partner in the Hamilton ecosystem to at nearly all medical schools in Canada, and
leverage the facilities and infrastructure needed to in one-quarter of all medical schools in the
accelerate their commercialization efforts. United States.
“Synapse’s strategic vision, collaborative approach The Synapse Consortium proves that putting
and concierge services for investors, researchers, egos aside and working together drives
clinicians, and life sciences entrepreneurs, start- momentum, says Dore. “I think one of the
ups, scale-ups and unicorns are unique and coolest things is that we’ve been able to put
transformational,” says Jeff mcisaac, Dean of ourselves on the map, not due to one entity,
research at mohawk College. but by asserting our superpowers collectively
and bringing them together for a common
mission.”
“i’ve yet to see anything like what Synapse does
anywhere else. it is incredibly powerful.”
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