In the ever-changing landscapes of testing, it is important that testing centers adapt and evolve in order to meet their goals, whether that goal is to serve their students better, to increase revenue, to expand their operation, etc. Drawing on Temple University's test center experience, this session will discuss the importance of data and how it can be used to help your test center meet its goals.

Conference Track: Test Center Management and Staff Training

Today we enjoy a global economy, enabling the efficient exchange of goods around the world. Just as we see goods and ideas flowing more freely in a globalized economy, however, it turns out cheating isn't bound by country borders, culture, or language either. Lessons learned in other countries to protect the integrity of test results can help improve testing domestically too. Join seasoned professionals as they share experiences and lessons learned in international markets that can help raise awareness and improve test security anywhere testing occurs!

Conference Track: Test Security

The 2016 NCTA Annual Conference App features many opportunities for networking and participation. We have added new features to the app this year. In this session, attendees will learn about the app's features, such as the ability to create individual profiles, access the conference program and agenda, do live polling, and see information about our conference sponsors. In addition, there are features that allow for connecting with fellow attendees, coordinating dinner groups, coordinating SRO groups, and finding activities to do in Seattle. Moreover, there will be a chance to volunteer via the app by choosing the sessions you want to moderator. Finally, we will discuss NCTA's social networking options, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Attendees will get tips for using the conference hashtag (#ncta16), finding new contacts, and using social media to leverage the best conference experience possible.

Conference Track: Orientation

Change is the order of the day in higher education. This is now truer than ever in the area of standardized assessments. Whether the change is being mandated by a state or federal agency or by your faculty, there is an impact to the Testing and Assessment Office. Therefore, it is imperative that Testing and Assessment is included as a key stakeholder in the decision making and implementation planning of any new assessment. Testing and Assessment's expertise is vital to the success of the implementation process. The presenters will discuss the process employed by Miami Dade College to identify, select, and implement a new standardized ESL placement test. It will include key factors from the academic and administration sides to consider when selecting a new instrument. They will also discuss ACCUPLACER ESL, a holistic instrument that accurately assesses students and allows for additional features and functionality which meet the customization needs of an institution.

Conference Track: Professional Development

This is not your mother's high school recruiting plan! Learn how one school is piloting a new outreach effort in high schools using placement testing as the centerpiece. A team approach to connect with students, share the importance of placement testing, and complete the majority of the enrollment steps during their school day took center stage this last year at Hennepin Technical College. The process from identifying premiere partner high schools to tracking enrollment and the return on investment will be discussed. Preliminary data will be shared.

Conference Track: Placement Testing

Testing Security is an always changing process because of new technology and growing student pressures. We will be reviewing faculty/staff roles and how their involvement impacts the testing center and the students. We will include a discussion about institutional reporting to assist in creating transparency within the institution when incidents occur. I hope to reveal some of the behaviors that have occurred and share incidents and outcomes. I would like to present new software available to students and technology available to help prevent dishonesty within academic testing. I invite you to exchange information on improving testing security and promoting integrity.

Conference Track: Test Security

Testing Services and Accessibility Offices frequently partner to provide testing accommodations to students with disabilities. Often, issues of space, training, and communication arise as important barriers and tools to successful partnership. This presentation will describe policies and data related to the importance of collaboration, identify barriers and support tools to effective collaboration, explain how our offices developed shared processes and tasks, present lessons learned for successful collaboration between our offices, and show examples of collaborative projects and procedures.

Conference Track: Accessibility in Testing

Newcomer Orientation welcomes those new to NCTA or the testing profession and provides opportunities to meet others within the organization and build knowledge about the testing community.

Conference Track: Orientation

The University of Oklahoma Center for Independent and Distance Learning has presented two outreach information sessions discussing Prior Learning Assessment resulting in a 150% increase in exams administered and a 175% increase in revenue. We presented Session 1 to university advisers while for Session 2 we brought in high school counselors, teachers, and administrators from around the state of Oklahoma. This presentation will lay out the steps we took to set up successful seminars plus give tips on what to do and what not to do to make your seminars successful and profitable.

Conference Track: Test Center Finances

This will be a roundtable discussion led by the Universal Accessibility in Testing SIG leadership team on current issues and best practices in test accessibility and accommodations. The discussion will rely on audience participation in discussing issues such as coordination and processes in test accommodations, collaboration with disability services, working with faculty and students, technology questions, managing expectations and balancing with other duties, maintaining test security while dealing with the various needs of students with disabilities, and real accommodated testing situations.

Conference Track: Accessibility in Testing

Do you find yourself frustrated by your campus' lack of support for testing or interest in test security? Do you feel you've adapted to changes in the field, but your campus is being left behind? If so, this is the session for you! This session will analyze multiple opportunities for testing centers to increase their presence, reputation, and importance on campus and beyond. The presentation and following discussion will arm attendees with ideas on how to collaborate with faculty and staff, stimulate conversations on test security, and increase revenue for your center. Additionally, it will include best practices to mitigate cheating in classrooms and strategies to share this information with faculty.

Conference Track: Test Center Management and Staff Training

The GED® Test, now with three performance levels introduced earlier this year, represents the full range of abilities for today's graduating seniors. The findings from the analysis of the first eighteen months of testing with the 2014 GED(R) test will be discussed along with the changes in performance levels. Additional college and career pathway resources for test-takers will be highlighted: the free, online career assessment tool for test-takers in partnership with PathSource and the national employer program, GEDWorks®.

Conference Track: High School Equivalency Testing

College testing centers have long been supported financially by third-party testing vendors who send test-takers to physical centers to be proctored for exams. As the remote proctoring industry approaches its tenth anniversary, it is crossing into mainstream testing modalities. Last year, Microsoft announced a partnership with PearsonVue to provide remote proctored tests for its certification programs. The pilot has gone well, and Microsoft expects to expand its programs. Several accredited certification programs have applied for approval to use remote proctoring as part of their test security process and the testing industry, outside of education, has hit a tipping point. Traditional test center companies including PSI & Kryterion have acquired remote proctoring companies or have built their own remote proctoring networks. College test centers must evaluate their long-term plans and determine how they can participate as the market changes.

Conference Track: Proctoring

This session will focus on how Testing Services at the University of Cincinnati Clermont College went from an undeveloped after-thought to part of a thriving Student Success Center. In the spring of 2015, Testing Services relocated from an old classroom with no privacy, space, or ability to develop to a newly renovated space which allowed Testing Services to quickly re-envision its presence on campus by increasing service offerings and revenue along with student, faculty, and community use. This new awareness prompted the creation of a Student Success Center which focuses on student retention and includes Testing Services, Disability Services, and the College Success Program. Attendees will learn how Testing Services managed to quickly turn things around to become a more prominent entity on campus and in the community.

Conference Track: Test Center Management and Staff Training

Placement tests are critical to students' successful transition to college. However, deciding how placement tests should be used and evaluating their effectiveness can be challenging. This presentation will discuss the intricacies of placement testing, including the justification for their use, expected outcomes for correctly placed students, common approaches to validation (and their limitations), and practical recommendations for collecting validity evidence and promoting valid uses of placement tests. This session will expand upon the presentation given as part of the NCTA webinar entitled "Placement Testing Implementation Success: What You Need to Know, Test Administrators Panel" by discussing methods for setting and evaluating cut-off scores as well as how placement tests can be used in a multiple measures approach to placement. Throughout the presentation, examples from the University of Wisconsin and Tailwind Placement testing programs will be provided.

The session goals include the following:

• Attendees will understand and explain the value that placement tests offer over other standardized performance indicators, such as admissions tests.
• Attendees will be able to discuss what it means for a student to be correctly placed and the criteria by which a placement test should be evaluated.
• Attendees will be able to discuss validity considerations related to common placement practices, such as retesting and use of multiple measures.
• Attendees will be able to define the concept of restriction of range and discuss the impact of using a variable for selection on resulting validity studies.
• Attendees will be able to discuss relative strengths and weaknesses of different common approaches to validating placement tests.

Conference Track: Placement Testing

Do you have what it takes to be an Exam Security Super Hero? Are you able to protect exams from thieves and cheaters? Detect test security violations? Respond to test security breaches to improve your testing center's overall test security? Test security super heroes may not be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but their honed test security traits are ridding the planet of evil and making tests fair and valid for all test takers. Come join us as we discuss the top 10 traits of an exam security super hero. We'll describe the necessary skills needed to stay abreast of the latest test threats, provide some resources to help keep you at the top of your game, and discuss why, as a test center administrator, it's important to have the big picture of test security in mind as you proctor and manage the testing center environment.

Conference Track: Test Security

POD's are a new session format designed to foster collaboration and networking opportunities around a central theme of interest to NCTA members. Please come and join your NCTA colleagues in an open conversation and information sharing session about the designated topic.

Academic institutions are continually challenged to provide added value for their students and to serve community needs on limited budgets. The NCTA model of re-purposing computer labs during non-academic peak periods for secure commercial testing is a creative example of how schools address these challenges. New testing technology and alternative test delivery options, however, are eroding testing volumes for NCTA test sites.

Computer-based Event Testing (CBET) provides academic institutions with the opportunity to extend the NCTA testing model to underutilized auditoriums and classrooms, using tablets/other mobile devices, the Internet, and on-site proctoring. This approach expands secure test delivery options to support campus testing needs, and introduces the ability to attract larger volume commercial testing programs to generate new revenue streams.

This presentation will define three CBET delivery models: real-time Internet delivery, private LAN delivery, and pre-loaded tablets/mobile devices. Testing vendor and academic institution roles and the requirements to become a CBET testing site will be addressed, including Internet requirements, device options and proctoring.

New, patent pending technology to address the unique security challenges of CBET also will be discussed, including Computer Proximity Delivery™ that uses technology to locate testing devices within the room, determine their relative proximity, and control test delivery in a manner to assure that candidates seated within viewable screen distance/defined proximity are never presented the same exam question simultaneously.

Conference Track: Testing Technology

New and updated for 2016 and as a follow-up to last year's fake ID presentation, this session will discuss more types of identification and how to check for authenticity. Two major issues for test security are fake ID's and real ID's used by the wrong person. What can you do to help identify identity fraud? What is the difference between a passport and a visa? What does a valid Green Card look like? What do I do if someone hands me a fake ID? You will be shown tips to verify ID's and inexpensive tools to help in the authentication process.

Conference Track: Test Security

Excited about today's keynote presentation on the role of distance education in re-imagining testing? This session provides an opportunity to continue the conversation with our keynote speaker. Come join Rhonda and your fellow NCTA colleagues in an informal setting to ask questions, exchange ideas, and broaden your understanding of distance learning and its intersection with the world of testing.

Conference Track: Professional Development

Applying for an NCTA Grant can be easier than ordering a coffee at your local caffeine cafe. We will take you through the Grant Application process and give examples of applications that have been accepted or turned down...and why. If you have a special project that you feel fills the order, you are urged to come by to listen, learn, and ask questions. You then will be able to order your NCTA Grant with extra whipped cream and sprinkles on top.

Conference Track: Certification, Grants, and Standards

The Annual Proctoring/Learner Authentication Survey is administered to measure good practices and perceptions regarding efforts to foster a culture of academic integrity through learner authentication and testing integrity. 284 persons submitted the survey including faculty, students, administrators, test center directors, and proctors. Results will be revealed in a game show type format.

Conference Track: Proctoring

This session will demonstrate an overview of our experience in administering exams with Apple's iPad. In this demonstration we will talk about how we have implemented iPads in our testing center to supplement traditional testing on desktops. In using the Accessibility features within the iPad, we will demonstrate multiple assistive technologies like text to speech, zooming, and Switch Control that can help students with disabilities. This session will also cover how to secure the iPad through Guided Access, turn off the iPad dictionary, and restric websites during the test session to help prevent cheating.

Conference Track: Accessibility in Testing

You've landed your dream job in Testing Services and quickly found that there is more to it than watching people take tests. The New Professionals Institute is designed to provide those entering the field with fewer than three years of experience with the opportunity to connect with colleagues and engage in dialog regarding current issues in testing. Topics will include Best Practices, FERPA, professional/personal life balance, establishing mentors, state testing organizations, test center operations/logistics, and managing relationships outside of testing.

Conference Track: Orientation

The best measure of a student's potential for success is a hot topic! At last year's NCTA conference, we highlighted the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) system's two year journey of implementing Multiple Weighted Measures (MWM). We are back with data in hand! This session will cover a brief history of MnSCU's path to MWM and share Hennepin Technical College's first two semesters of MWM data. Come prepared with questions; there will be plenty of Q and A time.

Conference Track: Placement Testing

Have you heard from your NCTA colleagues about their online appointment system and need to know what questions to ask to make a choice for your institution? Are you struggling to keep up with the myriad of testing related responsibilities that your institution continues to heap on? Do you need help making the most of your limited staffing? Do you want your test candidates to have the ability to pay online before taking their tests? Or are you simply looking for an organized way to track your testing business?

If you answered yes to any of these, this session will show you how RegisterBlast is being used at various institutions including Miami Dade College to deal with these very issues. You will learn about real scenarios and solutions that can help you make the best decision for your institution. You will also learn about the latest enhancements to RegisterBlast as well as what is on the horizon. This session is designed for the novice and seasoned testing professionals alike who have an interest in online appointment systems for testing.

Conference Track: Testing Technology

In 2014, ETS broke new ground in adult education with the HiSET® exam — an affordable, more accessible high school equivalency test. Now the fastest-growing exam on the market, it has been adopted in over 25 states and jurisdictions. This session will provide information about the program including an overview of the new HiSET Data Manager application, which will allow test centers to run aggregate performance and volume data on all of their HiSET test takers. Participants will learn more about the informational website and free instructional materials and also have an opportunity to speak with an ETS Director working on HiSET.

Conference Track: High School Equivalency Testing

Changing trends in placement are impacting many institutions, causing them to review, select, and implement new placement tools. From English and math to foreign language, implementing a new placement tool can be a daunting process, especially for those with test center responsibility. While most test center managers are experts at test administration, we often find that the implementation of a new placement tool stretches the boundaries of this expertise, leaving many to wonder where to begin and how best to move forward.

From the perspective of both a university and a community college testing center, this workshop will focus on planning a placement tool implementation from start to go-live and include tips on identifying campus stakeholders, developing implementation and communication plans, and successfully launching the placement tool, as well as offering advice to keep you sane during the process. Whether you're just beginning the implementation of a new placement tool, are in the midst of the process, or are on the other side looking back, come to learn and share with colleagues tips and tricks, foibles and missteps, and successes in implementation.

Conference Track: Placement Testing

This presentation is designed to demonstrate what a small, medium, and large center look like. Virtual tours of centers in the Idaho/Utah region that provide placement, classroom, high stakes, accommodative, and community testing plus more will be shared and discussed. Topics including floor plans, square footage, ratios of computer to paper based administrations and appointment to walk-in traffic, total staff needed, and technology used will all be addressed in this session to help fellow test center staffers see what is needed to run a small, medium, or large center. For our purposes, a small center is one administering fewer than 10,000 exams per year, a medium center is one administering between 10,000 and 50,000 exams per year, and a large center is one administering more than 50,000 exams per year.

Conference Track: Test Center Management and Staff Training

It takes two (and many, many more to be honest). As test publishers, we spend a lot of time and resources to market our exams—advertising their statistical reliability and validity, hyping the product quality of our respective brands, plugging the trustworthiness and credibility of our exams within their respective spaces. Test publishers have exhaustive (and expensive) processes to develop these tools. The process draws on the expertise of psychometricians, content developers, subject experts, and item writers, each of whom contributes to the development of assessments that yield fair and valid scores.

Test administrators are a vital component of the test development process and the supporting and promoting of the overall validity of test scores and the reputations of the testing companies they represent on exam day. Yet, all too often, test publishers fail to provide test administrators with a sufficiently complete picture of the entire testing context to allow them to appreciate their role within the process and represent the testing companies as well as possible.

The objectives of this presentation are to (a) educate the audience to the complete picture of the entire testing creation process, start to finish - what it takes to create an exam - from Job Task Analysis to Score Reporting and beyond; (b) discuss the importance of the exam administration role as a pivotal part of that larger process; (c) illuminate how all of our respective roles intertwine to provide test results which yield valid score interpretations.

Conference Track: Test Security

With the implementation of Florida's performance funding model, student retention and completion rates in Florida's public postsecondary institutions are now tied directly to their state funding. To address this challenge, strategic enrollment management (SEM) plays a vital role as Florida institutions endeavor to manage these mandates. SEM requires all areas at an institution to focus their initiatives and area goals on meeting the institution-wide goals of retention and completion. Testing and assessment areas should play a vital role by providing key institutional stakeholders with information and data to make informed decisions. Since assessment is an integral component in determining the success of programs and initiatives, the testing and assessment area is ideally equipped to assist with this vital assessment service as well as assist students with options and services to promote persistence. We will discuss the methods and strategies used by Testing and Assessment at Miami Dade College and which can be applied at any postsecondary institution.

Conference Track: Professional Development

This session will provide information regarding NCTA's quest in becoming a member of The Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (CAS). We will look more closely at the progress we have made since last year's conference, activities which we can anticipate in the near future, and an overview for members who are unfamiliar with CAS or who want to refresh their understanding of the organization.

Conference Track: Certification, Grants, and Standards

In the past few years, remote proctoring has gone from a somewhat curious anomaly to a viable solution for institutions looking to provide a secure exam environment online. Recently we have undergone a comprehensive review of our strategy to provide secure examinations for faculty and students who teach and learn online. Included in this assessment was a comprehensive review of major online proctoring solutions as well as a review of our current policy to send students to local face-to-face proctoring providers at physical locations all over the world. This presentation will present our findings from this process including key features of different online proctoring platforms, important differences between online proctoring vendors and their products, considerations when choosing an online proctoring solution, and the value of online proctoring solutions versus in-person proctoring. Attendees of this presentation will leave with a better understanding of available online proctoring solutions, the pros and cons of each, and what is important when choosing a proctoring solution for their institution.

Conference Track: Proctoring

In an effort to assist with increasing student retention, Testing Services at the University of Cincinnati Clermont College has partnered with other student support areas on campus. Presenters will provide an overview of a cross-college departmental collaboration effort that was designed to improve service delivery to at-risk students. 20% of the students at UC Clermont can be categorized as at-risk as a result of academic under-preparedness. The Disability Services Office, Testing Services, and the College Success Program teamed up to provide a cohesive model of support to better serve students from the point of placement testing through their first semester and beyond. Presenters will share the model and discuss best practices. A discussion of resources and problems encountered will also take place. Time will be provided for questions and answers as well as group collaboration.

Conference Track: Placement Testing

Accommodations in the past were mainly limited to extra time, readers, and separate rooms. Today, thanks to rapid advances in assistive technology, candidates are requesting more and more to bring technology into the test center. In some cases, this is assistive technology that will help mitigate the negative effects of their disability, such as screen magnification software, special high-contrast keyboards, Brailling devices, or head-controlled mice. In other cases, candidates want to bring in medical devices that contain Bluetooth technology, remote-control devices, or medical devices that communicate with a smartphone. There is no question that candidates with disabilities or medical conditions need to be accommodated, but extra care needs to be taken to ensure that test security is maintained; candidates' "preferences" may not be realistic as they can pose significant security risks. This session will explore some of the increasingly-common accommodations requests that could pose security risks and offer practical tips for handling such requests.

Conference Track: Accessibility in Testing

Broward College recently revised its Strategic Plan in alignment with Florida's performance-based funding criteria and modeled "The 4 Disciplines of Execution" (4DX) as a methodology for implementing strategies and achieving goals. This interactive session will provide a conceptual framework whereby testing administrators can map opportunities to expand revenue sources that also coincide with performance-based funding categories and other college strategic priorities. Additionally, this session will provide participants with a strategic mapping template that can be adapted to their institution.

Conference Track: Test Center Finances

POD's are a new session format designed to foster collaboration and networking opportunities around a central theme of interest to NCTA members. Please come and join your NCTA colleagues in an open conversation and information sharing session about the designated topic.

Want to experience reaching the highest point in your test center career? NCTA-Certified Center colleagues will show you what it took for them to walk through the trails and showcase their spectacular work. Come see documents that were submitted before and during the certification process; these documents will give YOU an idea of how to create or update your center's existing documents. Also, you will hear how becoming certified has positively changed their centers! Because your colleagues are familiar with what it takes to scale the heights, you will leave the session with sample documents provided by the Test Center Certification Committee. Get a jumpstart on preparing your "great wheel" of materials for the next market call for Pre-Applications for certification.

Conference Track: Certification, Grants, and Standards

What do you do when your testing program is stuck in 1980? Do you really need to keep ACT seating charts from 1994? Can you call yourself a testing center if all you have is three computers on folding tables? Is it acceptable to use a stack of post-it notes as a testing calendar? Join the testing staff of McNeese State University as we describe how we dug into the clutter, redesigned, revamped, and brought our testing center into the 21st century. During the process of investigating scheduling programs, testing furniture, staffing levels, and contracts with new vendors from both the test administration and university administrative perspectives, we discovered sometimes it's just best to start over.

Conference Track: Test Center Management and Staff Training

Does your University offer online degrees, hybrid courses, and/or online courses? Have you ever considered implementing an online test proctoring system to maintain test integrity? Follow along on Bellevue University's journey from a test proctor approval and email system to the premier online proctoring solution, Examity®. Learn how to clear the weeds to make a path for the change, till the soil to help buy-in, and then add fertilizer to watch transition support grow. In this session, we will present our findings and share our analysis of what we have learned. A representative from Examity® will be on hand to provide an overview of its online proctoring services, demonstrate the software, and provide insight on implementation. Attendees will leave this session with a more complete understanding of the advantages of remote test proctoring with Examity®.

Conference Track: Proctoring

Join the International Code Council (ICC) as we give traditional testing and credentialing a makeover to keep up with changes in the way people learn and develop. Assessment-based certificates layering with certifications, internet-based testing, nano-degrees, and more: learn from our journey into disrupting the way we've always done things. As a case study of an association that has made the leap into innovative technologies, take away some best practices we've attained through trial and error and learn from what we wish we had done differently. Attendees will come away with ideas to expand the available opportunities for testing in their own centers and how to keep up with today's educational models.

Conference Track: Testing Technology

When ACT announced the final administration date of COMPASS, many institutions were forced to name a successor. As colleges and universities begin to transition to their new exams, Test Administration Professionals (TAPs) in particular are being called upon to assist other departments that are severely impacted by these changes. This session should prepare TAPs to become the best possible campus resource for the exams by making them aware of how these exams will affect admissions and advising processes specifically. Additionally, this session will equip professionals to answer student inquiries regarding the articulation and transfer of developmental course credit.

Conference Track: Placement Testing

Cheating can be low tech or highly sophisticated and coordinated. New types of technology and new players in the cheating market are making it more difficult to stop attempts to cheat. Join test security professionals for a fun and interactive session to catch some common and not-so-common attempts to cheat. You'll learn some of the newest cheating techniques...and ways to spot them!

Conference Track: Test Security

Kangaroos, snakes, and turkeys, oh my! Requests for comfort animals and other seemingly ridiculous accommodations have gone amok. Testing organizations have seen a significant rise in the volume of candidates who present with an aggressive stance on their perceived right to accommodation. Some testing organizations maintain a staff of disability specialists who screen requests and help to sort out those that are reasonable from those that aren't; other organizations, for fear of being sued, just approve all accommodations requests and leave it to the test center staff to sort it out.

In the past few years, the legal landscape as well as the accommodations landscape have changed for students with disabilities who will be taking high-stakes exams. Following the passage of the ADA Amendments Act of 2008, testing organizations have seen a significant rise in the volume of requests for test accommodations. This session will provide an overview of the legal definition of who is considered "Disabled" under the ADA as amended, an overview of best practices for reviewing test accommodations requests, and practical tips for handling what may be unreasonable accommodations requests. The presenter will provide actual cases to illustrate examples of reasonable or unreasonable accommodations requests and tips for managing each.

The speaker will illustrate a perspective that emphasizes a moderate, reasonable approach to accommodations, ensuring that candidates with disabilities have full access to the test while also ensuring that individuals who are not disabled do not receive undue advantage. Issues of test security and potential distraction to others will also be addressed.

Conference Track: Accessibility in Testing

If you are a new ACCUPLACER user or a seasoned veteran, this session will provide you with information and practices used at Miami Dade College and other institutions across the nation. Learn about practical features ACCUPLACER offers that will aid you in meeting the various assessment demands your institution puts on your testing center. Whether it is reporting features, group testing, high school outreach or dual enrollment testing, complex branching profiles, multiple measures, diagnostic assessments, local tests, and beyond, it will be discussed in this session. If any of these features are important for you to meet the myriad needs of your center, campus, and/or institution, this session is for you! The presenters will use a live ACCUPLACER site to demonstrate the many features available as well as address questions from the audience to demonstrate functionality. This session will offer practical institution-based examples that will help to make your life easier!

Conference Track: Assessment Design and Psychometrics

In order to address the projected and existing shortage of students earning degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), colleges need to take advantage of the asset that many students arriving on campus possess: prior learning, which can be measured by the College Level Examination Program (CLEP) as well as other Prior Learning Assessments (PLAs). This session (which will be interactive with audience Q&A) will include material on Military and Homeschooled students and their abilities to achieve success with CLEP, DANTES Subject Standardized Tests (DSST), and other PLA exams.

Military members with a current Active Duty, National Guard, or Reserves ID Card can take every CLEP and DSST test one time at no cost, but the majority of military members do not know that testing is available or how to go about testing or where to get study materials. Some tests provide military members college credits while also counting towards career advancement.

Newly released data from the U.S. Department of Education shows that between 2003 and 2012, the number of American children between ages 5 to 17 who were homeschooled rose 61.8 percent. This increase means that colleges and universities across the country are seeing more and more homeschooled students but are struggling to know how best to recruit, advise, and support them. Prior Learning and CLEP allow the skills naturally found in the home schooled student to be translated onto a higher level: that of higher education. These students succeed because of the way they are trained, and that same training translates into testing success.

Conference Track: Prior Learning Assessment

Your mini MBA is now in session. Building on the workshop at last year's conference, this session will provide an in-depth look into how a testing business can be run and create more productivity for all the workers. You will learn how to boost productivity and manage finances and resources, organize and manage scheduling, focus your energy on things that matter, and understand how using stress positively helps. You will also learn about creating/managing a realistic budget spending only what's necessary, investing in good and solid technology, not being wasteful, treating and compensating employees fairly, and keeping an open door to vendors.

Conference Track: Test Center Finances

As you know, there are many colleges across the nation that recognize and are discussing the possible pitfalls of relying on a "single placement test" for course placement. . .and many of these are Compass users who are still discussing what they will be doing post-Compass. ACT has completed research on multiple dimensions of readiness and multiple measures to be utilized in course placement. This interactive session will provide you with an opportunity to learn more about this possible cost saving approach to course placement.

Conference Track: Placement Testing

The challenge of keeping a workforce composed of non-undergraduate students is one of the most time-consuming management tasks at Florida State University's Testing Center. Between proctoring, checking students in and out, covering the scanning department, and preparing and processing course evaluations, 950 man hours per week are required to cover our needs. We rotate staff through positions on an hourly basis to keep everyone involved in daily operations. Creating and adjusting a daily schedule for 30-35 employees that rotate through over a dozen positions can be mind boggling. These Operations Assistants are casual, hourly paid employees with no benefits. Most are graduate students or the recently graduated. The turnover rate for our pool of proctors is 20-30% each semester making recruiting, hiring, and training continual activities. This presentation will emphasize the importance of the hiring selection process, having a comprehensive training program, and cultivating an atmosphere that encourages responsibility.

Conference Track: Test Center Management and Staff Training

This presentation is designed to help institutions plan and implement revenue generating activities through assessment and testing. It will include the process and steps that are needed in establishing revenue generating activities, determining the institution's capacity, identifying resources and potential markets, understanding the types of assessment that coincide with specific customers/ markets, determining the needs of assessment in business and industry, and addressing other key issues when planning revenue generating activities.

Conference Track: Test Center Finances

This session will address trending topics in CLEP testing from the Unify transition to updates to the CLEP handbook, My Account, and the CLEP Resource Center. There will be plenty of time for Q&A from the audience.

Conference Track: Prior Learning Assessment

Many testing professionals are finding themselves in the middle of a debate on college campuses regarding the security of take home tests, both for placement purposes and in the classroom. To aid in this conversation, the presenters developed a survey that has been administered to over 500 students nation-wide, comparing beliefs and behaviors regarding different types of academic dishonesty, across test settings. This presentation will discuss the methodology of the study and present preliminary findings, as well as discuss future research and possible implications of the survey results on college campuses.

Conference Track: Test Security

This session has been canceled.

Security is a critical consideration for any organization that creates examinations. This session will present the results of the 2015 survey of security practices conducted by the ATP Security Committee. These results include responses from credentialing organizations and vendors and show the practices being used by credentialing organizations to address security prevention, detection, enforcement, mitigation, and litigation. The presenter will also discuss how vendors and credentialing bodies see the division of security responsibilities as well as perceptions related to the effectiveness of various security activities. Finally, the presenter will make recommendations as to how test centers can incorporate these test security practices into standard operating procedures.

Conference Track: Test Security

POD's are a new session format designed to foster collaboration and networking opportunities around a central theme of interest to NCTA members. Please come and join your NCTA colleagues in an open conversation and information sharing session about the designated topic.

How can artificial intelligence (AI) technologies prepare students for college, increase retention rates, and help students learn what's most important?

In today's educational landscape, colleges are confronted with ever-changing and complex issues, all the while managing shrinking budgets. In this session, learn how sophisticated AI technologies seamlessly ingest and interpret faculty created curricular content stored in LMSs and blend those resources with additional learning objects to provide students access to the most trusted resources to enhance and tailor their learning experience. Then, let's go one step further: these AI technologies now automatically trigger personalized, adaptive and self-paced learning pathways for each student, designed to increase proficiency in areas where intervention is needed most. Plus, big data cognitive computing capabilities now put controls at the fingertips of administrators to better understand competencies taught (when, courses, professors, academic year), competencies tested, and student proficiency levels.

While implementations vary from embedding AI technology directly into a college's LMS to a complete, stand-alone system, perhaps the implementation of most interest to Community Colleges is as an add-on to placement testing. This presentation will overview how AI technology can interpret data and student performance on placement tests, then automatically launch an adaptive learning pathway, unique and personalized for a student. The Learning Pathways will be activated for all competencies in which a student was unable to demonstrate proficiency. The Learning Pathways contain (a) instruction, (b) practice, and (c) performance sections, and cycle until performance meets the expected goal.

Session participants will learn (1) about advanced, artificial intelligence technologies and their impact on student learning, (2) how adaptive learning pathways automatically trigger based on placement performance and target competencies in most need of intervention, (3) how AI solutions can help make content stored in LMSs more accessible, and (4) will be introduced to cognitive computing technologies related to curricular content and student proficiency.

Conference Track: Testing Technology

GED Testing Service is implementing a comprehensive research agenda to document and analyze key outcomes of GED® graduates. This session will outline the major research initiatives underway and planned. Participants will learn about the exciting and significant findings that the research has produced to date about the ways in which GED® graduates are finding success in postsecondary education and the workplace.

Conference Track: High School Equivalency Testing

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