Background

The Educational Research Centre wishes to establish a single-party framework agreement for the provision of an On-Line Test Authoring and Delivery Platform. The overall scope of the requirements relates to a platform through which ERC tests will be delivered to schools and test takers in Ireland. The platform will be able to support both current and yet-to-be-developed tests that will include, for example, 
interactive activities (at the item level) and adaptive functionality (at the test level). 

The platform should facilitate Test Creation, Test Subscription, Test Delivery, Result Management, Payment system, Reporting and Administration.

Solution

The Online Test Authoring and Delivery Platform provides a complete, end-to-end assessment platform for the secure management and delivery of on-screen assessments, examinations and tests. The platform provides you with the computer-based testing and management tools that enable you or your team to author the most effective questions for your assessment requirements, ready for formative and summative high-stakes assessment.

The platform allows you to deliver assessments securely through a number of different online channels including PC, Mac, tablet and smart-phone, supporting efficient item management, with one question item being available for many channels.

The platform consists of integrated “portals”, all developed to provide specific functionality required in order to provide an efficient, robust and scalable system.

Following extremely successful periods of platform trailing with the Irish educational system on a national level, the
platform received endorsement by the Department of Education in Ireland. The Educational Research Centre are now
actively engaged in the role out of the national standardized school testing plan across the Republic of Ireland.

 

The platform features a suite of fully integrated modules including:

Administration Portal
- Question Module: Provides Item and Test Authoring features.
- School Management Module: Provides ability to add / edit schools and associated students to the platform 
- Test Management: Test Plan Creation: This includes assigning tests to test centres  (e.g., schools) and specified 
   groups/individuals within that centre, scheduling functions such as a time frame.
- Test Subscription: Provides the ability to assign tests to schools, test setup and access to the tests.
- Test Delivery: Provides the management facility of test delivery to the test centres via the Test Taker Portal
- Test Result Management:  Management of test data results for the use of ERC only.
- Reporting: Full management and report creation tool suite.
- Administration: Full system administration including users, profiles and responsibilities.

Test Taker Portal
- Provides the ability to manage and administer tests for test takers Online.
- Ability to take “actual” and practice tests.
- Secure, Online environment with login, session key and tracking controls.
- Intuitive User Interface with various layouts to facilitate the question and answer types

School Portal
- Provides the ability for an individual school to manage their school profile information, details and user management.
- Provides the ability to create and manage school classes and students within the school.
- Provides the ability to purchase tests securely Online and administer/ schedule tests to students.
- Provides full transactional and purchasing information relating to orders.

Proctor Portal
- Secure Login system to an Online proctor system.
- Provides real-time monitoring of all test sessions via a web based dashboard.
- Provides functionality to Pause / Resume individual test(s) or an entire test session.

 

Results

Following extremely successful periods of platform trailing with the Irish educational system on a national level, the platform received endorsement by the Department of Education in Ireland. The Educational Research Centre are now actively engaged in the role out of the national standardized school testing plan across the Republic of Ireland.