For professors

Assign graded work on real filings.

Every exercise on Echelon is worked on a company’s own annual report, pulled from SEC EDGAR and cited line by line. The number a student submits is checked in code against the figure recomputed from that filing. A class of yours gets the same grading, a roster, and a spreadsheet you can take to a department meeting.

What is graded, and how

A lesson asks for one figure from a named filing, a gross margin or an operating margin say, and a one-line method. The figure is recomputed on the server from the filed lines and the submission is compared to it inside a small, stated tolerance. That comparison decides the pass: a correct figure cannot fail on wording, and a wrong figure cannot pass on wording.

The method line is read by an AI model that awards the remaining points for method and reasoning and writes the feedback. The model explains; it never decides the number. Its feedback may cite only the figures on the page, and a sentence that cannot be traced to them is replaced with one that can. A submission that reads as investment advice fails regardless of the arithmetic.

The model drills on Prove (a single-stage DCF, a sensitivity grid, a WACC build-up, a basic LBO and others) are graded with no language model at all: every cell is checked against the value the same pipeline derives from the filing, and the model has to reconcile end to end. The assumptions those drills rest on, a growth rate, a discount rate, an exit multiple, are stated on the page and handed to the student.

What is not graded

The view
No exercise asks whether a company is a good business, a good investment, or worth more or less than its price, and no grader rewards an answer that says so.
The assumption choice
A drill’s stated rates are given, not chosen, and a student is never marked on whether a different rate would have been better. What is marked is the arithmetic that follows from the rates on the page.

The pilot: one assignment

The pilot is one class and one assigned set, run on the console as it ships today. Nothing to install and nothing for central IT to review: there is no LMS integration in this tier.

  1. 01
    Write to us with your sign-in email

    Instructor access is an allowlist we maintain by hand. Send the address you will sign in with and we add it; there is no self-serve instructor signup.

  2. 02
    Create the class

    On your console, name the class. It is given an eight-character join code you can copy and hand out in any channel you like.

  3. 03
    Assign the lessons

    Pick the assigned set from the lesson catalog, the same catalog every student can browse. The gradebook's columns are exactly this set, and you can change it at any time.

  4. 04
    Students join with the code

    Each student signs in, enters the code, and types the display name you will see. Joining shares that name and their best score on each assigned lesson, nothing else.

  5. 05
    Read the gradebook, export the CSV

    Rows are display names, columns are assigned lessons, cells are each student's best score. Under every column: how many have a score, the median and the quartiles. A dash is work not yet attempted, never a zero. The CSV is built from the same figures in the same render.

The gradebook records the lessons that ask for a single figure. The model drills are graded and saved to each student’s own account, but they cannot be assigned to a class yet; that is the next thing the gradebook gains.

The cash flow convention

Convention: unlevered FCF = CFO + interest × (1 − t) − CapEx. Where the filing's tags ground it, EBIT × (1 − t) + D&A − CapEx − ΔNWC is graded correct too.

The DCF-family drills bridge from the cash flow statement: operating cash flow, plus interest expense after tax, less capital expenditures, each leg filed on the same annual period. On the single-stage and sensitivity drills, the other common bridge, from EBIT through D&A and working capital, is graded correct too wherever the filing's own tags support it; the base-rates drill grades the cash flow bridge only. The two bridges land on different figures for the same company, and that difference is a convention, not an error. Each drill says which bridge it grades under its header, before any cell is typed.

Accessibility

The public pages and the model drill were swept with an automated WCAG checker at phone and desktop widths in this release, and the drill announces its grade and names each failed line to a screen reader. The accessibility conformance report is a draft being re-issued from that pass; the surfaces that need a session are not yet covered by it, and we do not claim them until they are. Ask us for the current ledger, or read how every figure is computed on the methodology page.

What is stored about students

An account holds the sign-in email, the submissions and their grades, practice attempts and progress. Joining a class adds the display name the student typed for that class. You see that name and the best score on each lesson you assigned. You do not see the email address, the account identifier, other work, or activity. Students can delete their account themselves. The full list is on the privacy page.

Run one assignment on your next filing.

Educational use only — not investment advice. Figures come from public SEC filings; Echelon teaches you to analyze data, it never recommends buying or selling any security.