Introduction | Summary | More About TestManager | Using skills assessment for competitive advantage | High Stakes, Low Stakes | Those frustrating computers | Leveraging the web with TestManager | Enhancing the test-taking environment | How TestManager works | Where you can use TestManager | Designed for non-technical users | Defining a Test | Question formats supported | Pricing | Click Here for a Full Page Brochure

Introduction
Every so often a computer application comes along that is easy to justify, easy to implement and immediately begins to save you lots of time and money. That’s what using computers in business is really all about, and that’s what our new software products are all about. TestManager and SurveyManager are the types of applications that will make both users and managers more productive and more self-sufficient. Here is what one of our customers has to say about TestManager:

"After reviewing many web-based test delivery products, we chose TestManager from ACTS because it provides the most flexible and comprehensive approach for objective examinations."

Dr. David E. Douglas, Professor
Computer Information Systems & Quantitative Analysis
Sam M. Walton College of Business Administration
University of Arkansas

Summary
TestManager automates the process of creating and controlling an online test, quiz, exam, or certification. SurveyManager makes it easy to create and conduct surveys or evaluations over the web. These tools are specifically targeted to meet the needs of businesses of all sizes, as well as educational institutions, certification organizations, and government agencies, including the military. While TestManager and SurveyManager are robust, feature-rich, and secure solutions, they both cater to the non-technical or low-tech user, making it simple for those who want to establish their own sophisticated online testing, survey, or evaluation environment. Both products are web-server based applications that are accessed using browser software (Internet Explorer or Netscape). ACTS can either create and host your testing or survey/evaluation website(s) under an ACTS domain powered by our products, or license one or more copies of TestManager or SurveyManager to run on your own website or company intranet/extranet. TestManager and SurveyManaager may be installed on Windows 2000 Server, Windows NT 4.0, UNIX (including Linux), and Linux for S/390 and zSeries.

More about TestManager
Test-taking is a common and integral part of an assessment process. Businesses, government agencies, and institutions of learning frequently require students, employees and job applicants to complete tests to measure an individual’s knowledge, skill level, aptitude, personality, etc.

Using skills assessment for competitive advantage
In a rapidly changing technology world, the need for skills assessment is becoming increasingly important. For example, consider the competitive advantage a company would have if sales management had a convenient way to assess the situational and technical fluency of its sales force, measuring each person’s interpersonal skills, selling skills, general industry knowledge, and specific product knowledge. This information could be used to ensure sales representatives are properly equipped which will maximize the chances of success for all parties concerned. Similarly, consider the benefit of qualifying members of the technical staff to make sure they are properly equipped before assigning new responsibilities.

High Stakes, Low Stakes
High-stakes testing refers to tests that are given to certify a person as a specialist in a particular area, such as a professional organization offering certification for practitioners for a fee. In this environment a lot of time is spent ensuring the relevance of test questions, and a lot of rigor goes into controlling the environment when someone takes the test. At the other end of the spectrum you have testing where the stakes are much lower, and controls for defining and administering the test are less rigorous in nature. This includes tests or quizzes a student might take during a training course that are primarily meant to assist the learning process, or that an employer might give to check skill levels before assigning someone to a training course.

Those frustrating computers
Where creating and conducting tests has been so labor intensive, those involved are usually very eager to apply computer technology to automate as much of the testing activity as possible. However, moving a test to be taken online is not as easy as it sounds. The numerous computer systems in use today, the numerous software applications used in the pursuit of computer-based learning, and the numerous options to be considered when designing tests for both high-stakes and low-stakes environments have made online testing a complex undertaking. Many who have attempted automate the testing process have found the experience be frustrating and overly complex due to technical glitches and software limitations of the tools being used. The world-wide-web further raised everyone’s expectations that the providers of online testing solutions would soon make everything simpler, but years of waiting for these tools to mature, and for the internet to mature, has only added to the frustrations of those wanting to do testing online.

Leveraging the web with TestManager
At ACTS Corporation we saw an opportunity to provide a solution that met the requirements that was on many people's wish list for putting tests on the web. We have developed TestManager, web-based testing software designed for non-technical people to provide their own sophisticated online testing environment, for both high-stakes and low-stakes testing. Having the entire process automated, from test definition to grading test scores, saves you time and money. The more testing you do, the more money you save. Compared to doing paper-based testing, using TestManager…

• saves 100% of paper and printing costs because you never having to print the test
• saves 100% of time it takes to distribute the test to test-takers (an online test never has to be handed out)
• saves 100% of the time you were spending grading the test (grading is automatic)
• saves 100% of the time you spent posting grades (you set up a list of email addresses of who receives automatic notification of test results, such as supervisors, managers, or testing administrators, and you also control whether or not the test-take receives a copy of the transcript automatically via email)
• saves 100% of the time you were spending creating different versions of the same test (re-sequencing questions to make it difficult to cheat by looking at the test of the person next to you)
• minimizes the effort and expense of creating a test and making ongoing modifications to the test, because its all done online using our templates and easy-to-use software for test definition and ongoing maintenance.
• minimizes the support costs associated with maintaining an online testing environment, because someone doesn't have to have technical skills to define or administer tests, so technical support is all but eliminated and the cost of training people to use the system is minimal.
• minimizes the expense of test administration:

registration information can be created once per student and lasts indefinitely

you may require that registration information be supplied by each student, ensuring accuracy and saving admin time

access to the test is controlled by userid and password

before or after a test is taken, you may require a test-taker complete one or more special forms (e.g. confidentiality agreement, skills and experience profile, opinion survey)

you control how many times a student may access a given test, the default is one-time only.

• provides complete GRADE BOOK features and functions (see below for more details).

Enhancing the test-taking environment
By placing tests online at our website, you can keep all the features you like about paper-based testing (such as allowing students to go back and forth to change answers, or spend more time on tough questions as time permits), but we give you a number of additional options that significantly expand your control over the testing process. For example, where a teacher created two or more versions of the same test to make cheating more difficult, a test at our website can be set up so that the sequence of questions is automatically randomized for each test-taker, so that no two tests are alike! We go one step further, and give you the option to randomize the answers for each question, so that the correct answer(s) appear in different places on multiple-choice questions. This can be done with our testing software because the test is graded automatically. You can imagine the enormous effort that would be required it you attempted to provide this level of variation manually, but using our solution its as simple as clicking on a button during test definition, and each student sees a unique version of your test!

How TestManager works

• Getting Started: You log-in to TestManager.com as a test administrator. As a test administrator, you can create and edit tests, define test-taker access profiles, or run various reports that monitor activity at the site level, by test, or by individual test-taker.
• Creating a test: Tests can be created while working online using templates, or offline at your desktop. You create the test by first creating a test profile where you select configuration options that will control how the test is presented to the test taker (time limit, navigation options, remediation options, scoring options, schedule, and more). You then create the individual test questions.
• Creating an access profile: While logged in as an administrator, you assign each test-taker a user ID and password. You may set it up for the user to provide additional profile information, or verify existing information, before taking a test.
• Taking a test: Each test taker must log in, provide any additional profile or other information requested, and take the test. Each question is sent individually from the server to the browser (in defined sequence or randomized depending on configuration options), and answers are recorded on the server before the next question is presented.
• Test results: The test is automatically graded upon completion of the last question. Test configuration options determine whether or not the test-take is permitted to see the test results, and whether or not an copy of the transcript (containing test results) is sent directly to the test-takers email address. Test configuration also identifies who immediately receives a copy of the transcript via email (e.g. administrator, supervisor, instructor, etc.).

Where you can use TestManager
You can use TestManager at one of our testing websites, or you can license it to run on your own website or company intranet. TestManager runs on Windows 2000 Server, Windows NT, UNIX (including Linux), and Linux for S/390 and zSeries. TestManager is server-based and browser independent, which eliminates many of the security and reliability problems associated with client-based testing products. We only use the PC client to run a browser (Internet Explorer or Netscape) to view questions, and our testing logic is all executed on the server. Our market research showed that people using PCs for testing were frustrated that the whole system could hang at anytime and all test results would be lost. This was particularly painful when the someone was near the end of a test, and had to start over. Actually, the unreliable nature of certain computing environments has been a major contributor to the low acceptance of using PC-based technology to do testing. By keeping our software web-server based, we isolate you from the headaches of using unreliable client devices. Should a client device lock up in the middle of the test, a test -taker can log in from any device and resume taking the test from the point of interruption. This of course, is an option you control. If you prefer you may specify that an interrupt test always be restarted at the beginning.

For high-stakes testing where you want the test to be monitored, we provide controls whereby a proctor can choose to terminate a particular test-in-progress for any time, for any reason. Using features provided by TestManager, the role of proctor is simplified. Typically all that a proctor needs to do is validate a test-takers identity, and ensure the test-taker doesn't reference any unauthorized materials during the test.

Designed for non-technical users
To reiterate an important point, TestManager was designed for use by non-technicians. Neither test authors nor testing-site administrators require any special technical skills to use any of the features of TestManager. Someone doesn't have to be a programmer or know HTML to establish or manage the online testing environment. TestManager comes with easy-to-use templates to make use of the environment simple and intuitive. It takes only minutes to become acquainted with the basic features of TestManager, and a little longer to understand how to use the more advanced features related to scoring, question remediation, and site administration. In any event, training needed to master all of TestManager’s features is measured in a few hours at most, not days.

Defining a Test
Each test is independently configured to give test designer control over numerous things, such as navigational behavior, grading, remediation, and randomization of questions as well as possible answers. For example, on some tests you may allow the test-taker to go back and review previous questions, but on other tests you prefer that all navigation is disabled except to move forward to the next question.

Similarly, on some tests there may be times when you want to provide remediation after a question is answered, either immediately or at the end of the test, and other times when remediation is omitted altogether. Here is a list of configuration and function options that are part of test definition:

Maximum time (in minutes)
Calendar (start and end times) when test can be accessed
Restart options if host connection is lost
Type of test: Standard or Adaptive
Email Notifications controls for student, administrators, and managers 
Randomize Question Sequence
Randomize Answer Sequence
Allow User to Postpone
Allow User to Skip Questions
Allow User to go to Previous Questions
Remediate after Answer (7 different options for handling remediation)
Notification when a test is paused and resumed,
Option to identifying specific IP (Internet Protocol ) addresses, as an extra security measure.

Question formats supported
When defining individual test questions, the question formats supported by TestManager include:

1. True/False
2. Multiple choice (single correct answer)
3. Multiple choice (multiple correct answers)
4. Fill-in-the-blank
5. Essay
6. Matching
7. Place In Order (sequencing)

Pricing
Please call for an individual price quote. License fee varies depending on features selected, hosting environment, and usage. Several pricing plans are available, and special discounts are offered to qualifying educational institutions.