Getting Started with Testing – Where Do You Begin?
by Rebecca Jordan

You’re a training manager and you realize the need to get serious about measurement. So you contact us and we set up a testing portal for you. What now? Where do you begin? What decisions do you need to make? Over the years working with many, many clients we have established a “getting started” process. It steps our clients through the decisions they need to make to get their assessments created and assigned to their learners. Here’s the process for setting up your first exam:

1. During the kick-off meeting your Pedagogue Project Manager will review the few forms needed to set up your portal, student roster and exams.
2. You provide a file of anticipated users to be loaded into the student database. This can be an Excel spreadsheet or if you are working with a larger student base we will often arrange a direct data feed from your HR system. This file contains user information such as first and last names, email address, manager, and any other information that you would find helpful for reporting purposes. You can use this roster to create student groups within your organization. You will also need to establish a unique identifier for each person to use as his or her login.
3. Next you send the exam questions (Microsoft Word file or Excel spreadsheet), the list of students in your roster who should receive this exam, and the Properties and Messages form provided by Pedagogue. This form will establish formatting specifications for each exam (title, duration, timing options, student review abilities, question randomization, passing score, and introductory and score-specific messages). Because Pedagogue has LMS-like capabilities, this form also lets you establish any prerequisites that need to be fulfilled prior to taking the exam.
4. Using these forms, documents and your company logo, the ExamsDirect
   team creates your branded, dedicated portal, inputs the questions, configures the exam(s) to your specifications and publishes it for review.
5. You and your pilot team review the exam and send a list of any changes that need to be made to our support staff.
6. Once the exam is approved, it is made available to the assigned student group at the beginning of the testing period.

Typically setting up a portal, creating the first exam or set of exams, establishing the roster of students, assigning students to groups and making the exam assignments takes about two weeks. Thereafter exams can usually be set up and assigned within 24 hours.