Representatives from three major, nationally available placement testing programs will present on what test developers want campuses to know about choosing and implementing a new placement testing system. These experts in test development will speak generally about best practices in test development and how that relates to choosing an instrument. While each represents a placement testing product, their focus will be on their knowledge of placement test development and how that relates to successful implementation of a new placement testing system on college campuses, regardless of which instrument or product your campus is using.

Topics will include:

• National conversations around placement testing
• Designing a course placement program, not just selecting a test
• Best practices/processes in choosing a placement instrument
• On-going review and analysis of placement program effectiveness
• Test validation in a placement testing environment
• Sharing efficacy data with your administration and departments
• What role should testing programs play in determining effective placement tools?
• Evaluating the “True Cost” of your placement program (institutional costs and student cost)
  • o IT (SSO and data retrieval)
    o Cut scores
    o Accessibility
    o Proctoring vs un-proctoring
    o Research and data analytics

Dr. Jim Wollack, University of Wisconsin-Madison/Tailwind Placement
Chantel Reynolds, The College Board/Accuplacer
Richard Kolasa, ALEKS/McGraw-Hill Education

This webinar will be a panel of testing administrators from four different schools who have recently been or are in the process of implementing new placement testing programs. These presenters have been closely involved with their campus leadership around implementing new language, mathematics, or English placement exams at the following schools: Harper College, Temple University, Purdue University- Calumet and University of Akron.

Topics include:

• Functional roles versus technical roles and how they might collide
  Launch plan and timing
• Building a communication plan
• Homegrown versus published instruments (English, Math, and Foreign Language)
• Proctored versus un-proctored administration
• Use of alternative measures to place students into appropriate courses
• Research on student success in the classes in which they are placed/enroll
• Retest policy and test sessions (i.e. do students have to complete in one sitting?)
• Fee structure
• Development of pre and post-test instructions and review/approval by all stakeholders
• Cutoff scores and feedback
• Tips for effective communication throughout process
• A Placement Testing Implementation Checklist: What to Consider When Introducing New Placement Tests to Your Campus

Sally Frazee, Temple University
Dr. Sara Rieder Bennett, University of Akron
Kathy DuBose, University of Akron
Joe Scrima, Harper College
Jan Gonzalez, Purdue University- Calumet

The topic of test center satisfaction surveys appears regularly on the NCTA listserv. The Webinar Committee has put together two presentations that will cover both survey design and how to use the data collected through student/client/customer satisfaction surveys. These presentations are intended to be practical in nature and hope to provide coaching and basic skills that will allow NCTA members to develop their own surveys.

The second of two parts, this webinar complements the skills introduced in the first webinar by focusing on how to use student/client/customer feedback to improve your operations and tell your story. This webinar will discuss how to use surveys to collect data on the student experience and use the information to inform and reinforce collaborative relationships, to show how a testing center positively impacts the student experience and supports student success, and to demonstrate how the testing center is aligned with institutional, divisional and departmental missions.

Heidi Pettyjohn

Testing Services Program Manager

University of Cincinnati

Nancy O'Shea

Manager, Testing Services

Brookdale Community College

The topic of test center satisfaction surveys appears regularly on the NCTA listserv. The Webinar Committee has put together two presentations that will cover both survey design and how to use the data collected through student/client/customer satisfaction surveys. These presentations are intended to be practical in nature and hope to provide coaching and basic skills that will allow NCTA members to develop their own surveys.

The first of a two part presentation, this webinar will introduce NCTA members to basic concepts of client feedback/customer satisfaction survey design and item construction. The webinar will provide practical advice on how to identify what in your operation can and needs to be assessed, help you to understand the types of survey items that are available to meet your needs, offer suggestions on method of delivery, data collection and survey frequency.

Julie Boyce

Senior Marketing Manager

Pearson VUE

Nancy O'Shea

Manager, Testing Services

Brookdale Community College

Test security requires not only vigilance on our part but also knowledge of religious/spiritual clothing and medical/disability related devices that may be new to us. These areas can present some questions from a test security standpoint. Presenters will provide an overview of clothing and selected practices related to Orthodox Jewish and Muslim spiritual tradition as well as an overview of selected medical, disability, and assistive technology-related devices (hardware and software) that NCTA mailing list members have named as concerns. Our ETS colleague will provide thoughts related to testing security within the context of an informed respect for tradition and needs. Participants will have time to pose questions, identify concerns, and share experiences relevant to the topic of this presentation.

Presenters:

Trey Duffy, Director, Disability Resource Center, Cal Poly San Louis Obispo
Past-President, Association on Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD)

Naora Ben-Dov, Director, Educational Testing, Woodbury University

Yassaman Mirdamadi, Director of Testing Services, University of Arkansas-Fayetteville

Patty Keyser, Director, ETS Brands Program, ETS Office of Testing Integrity

Alice Mitchell, Ph.D., Psychometrist, Counseling Center Testing Office, University of Maryland

As college testing center professionals, we are masters at coordinating services for our community. As rural testing center professionals, we may have a slightly different charge than our urban compatriots. Private sector funding sources are drying up and federal programs are advocating for shared efforts in rural communities, how do we manage in this new landscape? At the same time, national certification exam programs are converting to computer-based formats and on-line education is burgeoning. The NCTA has begun the work of knitting together a network of college testing professionals with the Consortium of College Testing Centers. This webinar will discuss rural policy initiatives that are at work now and how those initiatives are impacting rural college testing centers. How can the use of a SWOT analysis, advisory boards and new partnerships foster the mission of the rural college testing network? We hope to answer these questions and more.

Kellie Smith is the Director of the Tutoring & Testing Center at Central Oregon Community College in Bend, Oregon (pop.79,000). The college district is 10,000 square miles with four campuses to support citizens who live in the center of a state currently sporting a population of 4 million. Since 1997, Kellie has been managing a regional testing center that supports her college, local branches of state universities and state and professional certifying programs for her community(www.cocc.edu/Tutoring-and-Testing ). She has been a member of the NCTA since 2003.

David Espinoza is the Director of the Testing Center at the University of Oregon. He currently serves as the NCTA Past President, is the Chair of the NCTA Webinar Committee and a member of the NCTA Non-Standard Testing Accommodations Committee.

This webinar will provide an overview of the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act (ADAAA) Law and principles of Universal Design as they apply to testing accommodations. The focus of the presentation will be a discussion of best practices in providing reasonable accommodations to students with disabilities in a college testing center.

Tom L. Thompson

Retired - Director, Disability Services and ADA Coordinator
William R. Harper College

Tom Thompson is the retired Director of Disability Services and ADA Coordinator for Harper College. He worked in this role since 1980. Tom has also been active on campus in numerous roles including: serving on three accreditation committees, chairing a Crusade of Mercy fund raising campaign for three years, teaching as an adjunct faculty member and helping to create several scholarship programs for students. He has written and managed grants totaling over $6,000,000 and raised $750,000 in private/corporate funding. He is currently working part time for the College as a Grants and Resource Development Specialist.

Tom holds a MA degree in Rehabilitation Counseling and a BA degree in Psychology and Philosophy. Besides working at Harper College he has twice served on the Board of the Association on Higher Education and Disability, was a founding member of the Illinois-Iowa AHEAD chapter and has presented at numerous conferences on program development, budgeting and program assessment. He has particular interests and specialization in working with students who are deaf/hard of hearing, in program review methods and in mentoring new professionals. He has received awards for his work from the ILLOWA and the national chapter of AHEAD. He has taught as an adjunct faculty member in Allied Health for Northern Illinois University and in Northeastern Illinois University's Rehabilitation Counseling graduate program. He has been a consultant to higher education institutions on issues on ADA compliance, accessibility, grants management and program evaluation.

Tom is married to Barbara and they are the parents of six sons. They now have eleven grandchildren living in Illinois, Wisconsin and Tennessee. His family are all avid SCUBA divers and take trips regularly to explore the underwater realm, returning annually to the Bahamas for family vacations. He is also a musician having played the guitar for over 30 years.

Heidi Pettyjohn has been the Manager of the Testing Services office at the University of Cincinnati in Cincinnati, Ohio since 2009. She has previous university experience in student financial aid and disability student services, and has worked as a therapist in both private practice and community mental health settings. She holds an MA in Mental Health Counseling and a BS in Secondary and Early Adult Education as well as in Biblical Studies.
Heidi is a member of the Ohio College Testing Association Steering Committee and is involved with the National College Testing Association's committee on Accommodated Testing. She has been a speaker at the Kentucky Association Testing Administrators Chapter annual conference and a presenter at the NCTA National Conference and the University of Cincinnati Diversity Conference.
She lives in Cincinnati with her husband and son and enjoys traveling, going to concerts and cheering on the Cincinnati Bengals.

Technology is rapidly expanding our options for wireless communication and mobile internet access. These capabilities are altering not only how we live and work, but also how we relate to each other. We are already seeing the integration of these devices into learning environments and their extension into high and low stakes testing is inevitable.

This Webinar will review the current progress toward high stakes Device-Based Testing (DBT). The future use of hand-held computers and wireless communication devices for testing will be projected. The likely operational and economic impact of the emergence of DBT on the testing industry will be considered along with the implications for college testing professionals. Potential opportunities for NCTA to leverage its value-add on behalf of college testing centers in this approaching DBT reality will be explored.

This Webinar is an expansion of the “From CBT to DBT” presentation delivered at the recent NCTA Conference in San Diego. The presenters are Lou Woodruff and Daniel Muzquiz. Lou has been involved in testing for over thirty years. At ETS he directed P&P centers worldwide and led the operational implementation of the first CBT delivery network. Lou served on the NCTA Governing Board and as President, introducing a number of important initiatives for the organization. He was given the NCTA Lifetime Achievement Award last September following his retirement as Testing Director for Bucks County Community College.

Daniel Muzquiz is a Founder and Managing Director at Phoenix Strategy Investments, a private investment and strategic advisory firm. He is also the CEO of ExamSoft Worldwide, the firm's most recent acquisition. A Harvard Business School grad, Daniel has held leaderships roles with JP Morgan's Mergers and Acquisitions Group, Boston Consulting Group and Nabors Industries. He served as COO of LEDCO, a leading provider of solutions that enable mobile computing. Daniel is also involved in a number of non-profits, including Teaching Trust, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Dallas Social Venture Partners, and Uplift Education.

This webinar is being sponsored by the Professional Development Committee so that members can learn more about the NCTA Professional Standards and Guidelines that define best practices in test centers. Vicki Black and Gayle Veltman will share how the Standards can be used to develop test center processes and procedures, or to evaluate what test centers already have in place. The presenters welcome questions about using the Standards and will be prepared to discuss the NCTA Test Center Certification process that is being developed for test centers.