Company Objectives

Our company objectives

by Edward Brent, President

I founded Idea Works, inc. in 1981 to develop and market social science computing programs and services to researchers and educators. For over a quarter of a century Idea Works has established an international reputation for innovative products, quality services, a social conscience, and integrity.

We have developed over 20 different programs for teaching and research, including Methodologist's Toolchest^TM (a series of programs to help researchers write research proposals and conduct research), Hyper-Soc^TM and Connections^TM (multimedia programs for teaching sociology), and Qualrus^TM (a qualitative analysis program using artificial intelligence techniques to help researchers code and analyze unstructured data). Our latest product is a computerized web service to automatically grade student essays (SAGrader^TM).

Development has been funded by SBIR grants from NIMH, NICHD, and NSF along with sales of existing products. These programs and services are sometimes self-published and sometimes published in collaboration with academic publishers, including Wadsworth, McGraw-Hill, and Sage Publications. These programs have been favorably reviewed in academic and trade journals as well as in the press. Over 10,000 copies of these programs have been purchased by Fortune 1000 companies as well as academic institutions, research institutions, and government agencies in all 50 states and many other countries. Thousands of students have used SAGrader's immediate grading and feedback to help improve their essays.

We work hard to make sure that projects undertaken by Idea Works are socially responsible. We often work with non-profit agencies and NGOs and offer them reduced rates for our programs and services. We collaborate on socially responsible projects. Our programs and services played a central role in projects to give Canadian citizens the opportunity to comment on foreign policy issues online, to help U.S. school children ask interesting questions about census data, to help managers in a Fortune 50 company respond to employee concerns, to assess hospitalization decisions for Missouri patients, to analyze social trends in world media, to help peers prevent suicide attempts, and to permit instructors at both college and K-12 levels to incorporate more writing and critical thinking into the curriculum.

The company has supported over 40 different employees over the years including many students. Our latest product, SAGrader, has led to rapid growth. We hope to manage growth carefully to continue providing high quality services, to provide additional high paying jobs and benefits to our employees, and to contribute to the local and regional economy.