Guiding Star Communications and Consulting, a learning consultancy, in partnership with Sandbox Software Solutions, a custom software development company, today announced the launch of Case Swarm, a software-as-a service web platform that enables social case study exploration.

“Case studies are fundamental to human learning experiences,” said Todd Kasenberg, Principal of Guiding Star Communications.  “They are used from a very early age in school, and they are used across the professional lifespan.  Our goal was to provide a platform for groups with something at stake – groups that are not always physically together - to explore structured case studies in a user-friendly online platform.”

Case Swarm guides both case creators and case learners through a process of input that results in rich, engaging experiences. Two or more people, part of a team, can login, review and explore the interesting or even tricky case studies that reflect real problems or scenarios faced. These case studies can be explored as current challenges, reflecting situations where one user seeks the best thinking of a group of peers in addressing a problem. Alternatively, Case Swarm allows teams to explore a case resolved by an expert, encouraging deep thought about alternatives and reflection on the case by the swarm to encourage better understanding and to suggest desired future behaviour.

Case Swarm releases the problem solving instincts in learning, and lets defined teams explore case studies in a safe, structured and secure web environment.

At the core of Case Swarm is a methodology of case presentation, reflection by user, comparison against either peer thoughts or expert answers, and commitment making.  The solution provides a synthesis of all contributions and enables back and forth discussion through specialized online forums.  Case Swarm also guides participants in setting goals for application of case-based learning to their own work or personal lives.

Case Swarm was developed in an industry or problem-agnostic manner in order to encourage broad use.  Professionals (legal, healthcare, financial, sales, marketing, real estate), customer service teams, software developers, engineers and students of all ages will find the methodology of value in their learning and problem solving. Benefits of the Case Swarm solution include:

• Promoting consistency in future handling of problems and/or experiences
• Showing respect to those most capable of addressing problems – those who live them
• Enabling understanding of the variety of options for problem/experience handling
• Engaging those close to work problems/experiences in troubleshooting
• Driving deeper learning of problem/experience resolution through guided dialogue
• Surfacing deep team/corporate/organizational knowledge
• Enabling identification of new problems/experiences worthy of next consideration

The solution encourages case study augmentation with video, documents, presentations, and more.

The software is tightly permissioned and secure, and use is permitted on a named user/monthly subscription fee basis.  It is platform-independent, requires no helper applications to be installed on a user’s computer, and is accessed on the internet by modern web browsers.

Said Devin Gauthier, COO of Sandbox Software Solutions, “We’re excited to be co-launching this important new solution – something that will further social knowledge development and help organizations and groups of all types solve practical problems they face.”

For more information, visit www.caseswarm.com.

Case Swarm releases the problem solving instincts in learning, letting teams explore case studies in a safe, structured, secure environment.

— Case Swarm (@CaseSwarm) July 15, 2016