Operational Philosophy

The CBTF admins use these values when making decisions.

Students should have a safe place to take their tests.

• Build routines and consistency so that everyone gets the same experience.
• Commit to keeping the academic integrity of the exam(s) intact. Be vigilant about catching cheating.

Maximize student satisfaction, then instructor satisfaction, then staff satisfaction.

• Unhappy students complain to unhappy instructors who complain to admins. Be proactive about problem solving.
• Develop the exam schedules in such a way that students can almost always select an exam time that is preferred for them.
• We do our best to accommodate DRES needs as much as possible in-house before referring to the DRES Testing Center.

Keep the instructor informed, but minimize their necessary involvement.

• Students can schedule/reschedule without involving the instructor.
• Proctors will try to handle incidents (with the students or the exam) as much as possible without interrupting the instructor. See Missed/Conflict Exams for more details.
• “Save the time of the instructor” is one of our maxims.
• Instructors have full access to the scheduling data for their students.

Study and improve as we’re doing this.

• We’re open to new challenges, discoveries, and resolutions during our pilot of computer-based testing. We know we don’t have every situation planned in advance, so we’re ready to adapt and enlarge as things come up.
• We are always open to feedback from students and instructors on making this a better experience.
• We will be introspective with our observations and data collected to improve the CBTF. (i.e. Observing student scheduling preferences to determine future exam schedules.)