There are a variety of ways of doing this

• Web based, purely involved the candidate answering questions through an online web browser with all the issues of time, responsiveness, security etc.

• Web plus client, usually where the test is delivered to the ‘client’ through the web but ‘sat’ using the local network not the web

• CDROM, disk plus client delivery – as above with delivery on a disk not from the web.

• Paper collected answers where the questions appear on the screen but the candidates writes the answers onto the a paper answer sheet.

Even conceivably, techniques such as - but we have excluded these from our discussions at this stage.

• Print the questions locally at Centre, process paper as above

• Data collection, scanning, OMR/ICR

but remember

• Security, robustness & recovery

• Costs, initial and running

• Logistics

We have defined four types of delivery service, although in reality there are many variations and permutations on this theme

Pure Web Based System

• In this method the candidate uses a commercial browser such as Internet Explorer, Netscape or Opera.
• This method has the lowest requirement at client or candidate’s machine
• There is no installation to consider
• Not all Browsers are equal and there may react differently to the underlying web code generated by the testing system
• Responsiveness is a real issue, although some of the system are very sophisticated in the way they handle this. Anyone who has used the web will be aware of difference’s in responsiveness at differing times in the day, and a slow response from your server can be very distracting, not too mention unfair to the candidate.
• Security - remains a real issue and if you can convince the candidates and your self about the security issues it will probably involve considerable effort in setting up robust, secure, confidential systems.
• Robustness - could there be anything worse for the candidate than the system ‘going-down’, or ‘crashing’ or ‘timing-out’ in the middle of a test, no matter whether it is a high or low stakes test.
• Timing - if the candidate is working against a ticking clock how unfair is it for the candidate to lose time because the system or the web is slow?
• However, this is probably the commonest type of test system- and the systems are out there to address most if not all of these issues.

Web plus client

• Here the web is used to ‘publish a test’ to a local system, which effectively downloads the test and allows the candidate to take the test in isolation from the web.
• Browser needs to be able to download the test
• The candidate then takes the test delivered by the p.c. or local network
• There is a higher requirement here at the client end, as it will probably have to run some software either delivered with the test, or previously installed.
• The download/installation therefore also needs to be managed.
• More sophisticated software is needed
• It is however isolated from the web and therefore there should be better responsiveness (although local conditions will prevail)
• The result may be given immediately if the answer’s are stored in the downloaded system as well, or you may need to upload responses back up the web to get the results.
• More robust simply by being isolated from the web for the time of taking the test
• Also much easier to control issues like timing

CDROM, disk plus client delivery

• Test published on disk as opposed to downloaded from the web
• Again there is an issue of the requirement at client
• You need to manage the download/installation
• More sophisticated software?
• Isolated therefore better responsiveness
• May need to upload responses
• More Robust
• Easy to control timing

Using paper

• Send paper to local site
• Print or display on screen
• Candidate responds on paper
• Severely limits item types
• Have to process the paper
• Printing is a problem
• Messy