Category: BTL News

BTL welcome Cardiff University to the growing Surpass Community

20 September 2019

BTL are proud to welcome Cardiff University to the growing Surpass Community. Cardiff University has demonstrated its commitment to further enhancing the student experience through technology by taking inspiration from other HE institutions and selecting BTL as the provider of their assessment platform. The School of Biosciences, with its reputation for excellence in research and teaching innovation, will lead the way for Cardiff with its adoption of Surpass. The research conducted by the School contributes to the underlying biological mechanisms of life and disease, seeking to deliver new solutions with major economic, societal and environmental impact. Research-led teaching inspires new…

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Filed under: BTL News, Industry News, Other, e-Assessment

The Value of Community in Building an Innovative Assessment Platform

18 September 2019

Community: People who are considered as a unit because of their common interests or shared experiences. Surpass Community: A growing group of international testing professionals who use the Surpass Platform or offer services to its users. Why is Community so important? You probably hear us talk about Community a lot at BTL, but that’s because we think it’s so important and invest a lot of time in bringing users of Surpass together. In this article we’ll discuss why community plays such a key role for BTL and Surpass, what the benefits of being part of an active community are, and…

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Filed under: A Day in the life, BTL News, International, Opinions

Press Release: Surpass integrates with Dropbox to provide offline marking capabilities for the Institute of Masters of Wine.

4 September 2019

Press Release: Shipley, United Kingdom – 3rd September 2019 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Surpass integrates with Dropbox to provide offline marking capabilities for the Institute of Masters of Wine. In 2018, the Institute of Masters of Wine, a highly respected professional organisation which promotes excellence and knowledge in the art, science and business of wine, came to BTL with a unique need for the offline marking of their rigorous examinations. Development of a solution involved a year-long pilot of the process which is now complete. BTL and the IMW have hailed this as a success, allowing the IMW to provide…

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Filed under: BTL News, Creative Item Authoring, International, Press Release, Services, e-Assessment

Q&A with Sophie Brumfitt and Becca Murdoch, members of BTL’s Product Management Team

3 July 2019

BTL’s Product Management team are dedicated to working with the Surpass Community to make Surpass one of the most sophisticated and innovative e-assessment platforms on the market. BTL may be the custodians of the code, but as an organisation we pride ourselves on listening to the people who know assessment best – our customers – to create a development roadmap that solves challenges, and allows the Surpass Community to achieve their goals. Working collaboratively with customers and internal teams, the Product Management team ensure new developments stay on track and that requirements are fully met before new functionality is released….

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Filed under: A Day in the life, BTL News, Industry News, Services, Surpass Platform

Collaboration: Why working together achieves better results

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11 June 2019

The Surpass Community are no strangers to collaboration. Every year over a hundred representatives from the assessment sector gather for the Surpass Conference, eager to overcome shared challenges and present new ideas in assessment. In this article discover how you can benefit from being part of this collaborative community when it comes to Surpass feature development. Collaboration is one of BTL’s core values, and one we actively promote both internally with teams and colleagues, and externally with our ever-growing international customer base, which has now reached 180 organisations using Surpass. Approximately £7 million is invested into Surpass every year, with…

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Filed under: A Day in the life, BTL News, Case Studies, Industry News, International, Surpass Features, Surpass Platform, e-Assessment

Assessment Technology Company BTL Group recognised for International Growth in The Sunday Times WorldFirst SME Export Track 100

31 May 2019

BTL Group have been recognised as one of Britain’s fastest growing small to medium-sized companies for international sales over the last two years, coming in at number 47 on the list. During this period, exported software and services accounted for 42.7% of BTL Group’s total sales revenue, with a two-year average international sales growth of 73.58% per annum. BTL Group was established in 1985 and is headquartered in North of England. Shifting their focus to assessment software in 2007 they have grown a strong community of customers both in the UK and around the world, with over 180 organisations currently…

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Filed under: A Day in the life, BTL News, Case Studies, Industry News, International, Press Release, Surpass Platform, e-Assessment

Surpass HTML delivery achieves landmark accessibility status – Q&A with Leon Hampson

16 May 2019

Approximately 1 in every 5 people live with a condition which could affect the way they use and experience on-screen assessment. Having an accessible software application ensures that all users can perform tasks in roughly the same time, and with the same level of effort, regardless of age or ability. In an increasing number of countries, laws and policies are in place that require digital content to be accessible. These policies are primarily based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), with the goal of providing a single standard for web content accessibility that meets the needs of everyone. Surpass…

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Filed under: A Day in the life, Accessibility, BTL News

Online Invigilation with The Association of Corporate Treasurers

27 March 2019

Over the last few months, The Association of Corporate Treasurers (ACT) has been spearheading use of BTL’s newly launched Online Invigilation Service, an innovative approach to remotely-based candidates, using dual camera monitoring technology. The introduction of Online Invigilation expands BTL’s existing Test Delivery Services, which already includes the largest computer-based test centre network in the UK for session-based testing. The ACT has already delivered several successful exam series to candidates in convenient locations around the world using Surpass with Online Invigilation. The ACT has used a combination of live invigilation and the record and review method as part of the…

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Filed under: A Day in the life, BTL News, Case Studies, Industry News, International, Services, Surpass Platform, Video, e-Assessment, online invigilation, remote proctoring

SQA confirms its investment in cutting-edge technology for high-stakes e-assessment

20 February 2019

The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), are a founder member of the Surpass Community and innovators in e-Assessment. They have recently confirmed their commitment to using the latest technologies for the development and delivery of assessments, by renewing their contract with the award-winning Surpass: The Assessment Platform. A detailed press release is available to download in PDF format here: Read the full press release: SQA BTL Contract Signing 2019 SQA Chief Executive, Dr Janet Brown, said: “Today’s contract signing reaffirms the strength of SQA’s 10 year partnership with BTL Group, and our commitment to using technology to deliver the best possible…

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Filed under: BTL News, Industry News, Press Release, e-Assessment

Latest Features coming to Surpass – Winter 2019

24 January 2019

The next release of Surpass includes some fantastic new features to help your organisation with assessment design and delivery. Tim Burnett and Holly Nicol recently demonstrated some of the key enhancements in a Surpass Community webinar, which was broadcast live from the BTL offices on 22nd January. If you weren’t able to join, you can catch up on the full recording here. In this short article we summarise some of the key features going into the next release. As always, more comprehensive details can be found on the Surpass Knowledge Base when the release goes live. If you’re an existing…

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Filed under: BTL News, Feature Walkthrough, Other, Surpass Features, Surpass Platform, Video, e-Assessment

2018: A Year in Review

2 January 2019

It’s been another incredible year for the Surpass Community. We’ve celebrated our 20 millionth on-screen test, held the biggest Surpass Conference yet, and launched a new online invigilation service. As well as all this, we’ve welcomed new organisations to the Surpass Community, and invested over £7 million into Surpass feature development, plus much more. Watch our year in review video (below) to find out more. Thanks to all Surpass Community members for their collaboration and hard work that make achievements like this possible. We’re looking forward to what 2019 holds!

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Filed under: BTL News, Case Studies, Industry News, Other, Video, e-Assessment

Latest Features added to Surpass – Summer/Autumn 2018

7 November 2018

There have been a number of new and innovative features added to Surpass over the last few months. Release 12.15 back in August saw the introduction of a new caliper tool, a new survey section type, and further enhancements to ‘Tasks’. More recently, the Autumn update introduced a new Likert survey question type, enhancements to bulk scheduling, and a new ‘Advanced’ mode of the Short Answer question type, plus much more. In this article, we will introduce just some of the most recent additions that can help the Surpass Community with assessment design and delivery. If you would like a…

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Filed under: Accessibility, BTL News, Other, Surpass Platform, Video, Webinars, e-Assessment

20 Million Cakes!

31 October 2018

Last month marked a huge milestone for BTL and the Surpass Community – 20 million on-screen tests delivered through Surpass, and what better way to share the success with our Surpass Community members, than with cake! The arrival of any sweet treat in the office is always sure to put a smile on everyone’s face, but it’s even more special when it marks the achievement of such a significant landmark. We received lots of lovely messages via social media from Surpass Community members as they received (and enjoyed eating!) their celebratory cakes. No doubt they didn’t last long if it’s…

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Filed under: BTL News, International, Other

20 million tests delivered through Surpass!

27 September 2018

This year the Surpass Community has achieved a significant milestone: together we have delivered our 20 millionth on-screen test! We’d like to thank all of the Surpass Community members who have contributed to us reaching this major landmark. Almost 3 million of those tests have been delivered just in the last year! So how did we get there? 20 million tests alone is impressive, but did you know that Surpass assessments are delivered in 125 countries? We’re proud to be trusted by some of the world’s leading awarding and professional bodies, to develop and deliver tests around the world. Surpass…

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Filed under: A Day in the life, BTL News, Industry News, Other, Press Release, e-Assessment

Accessibility in Assessment

18 July 2018

Inclusivity is a fundamental right for everyone. Together, as a community, we need to ensure that we are heading in the right direction in order to make inclusivity a reality and not just a dream. Assessment is something that we all face at some point in our educational journey, so everyone needs to have the same opportunity to express themselves and to be rewarded for their efforts. We tackled this complex and often controversial topic in a recent webinar for the Surpass Community. Joining the discussion were members of BTL’s Accessibility Team, Leon Hampson and Isabel Holdsworth, along with content…

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Filed under: Accessibility, BTL News, Case Studies, Industry News, International, Opinions, Other, Services, Surpass Platform, Video, Webinars, e-Assessment

Latest Features Added to Surpass – June 2018

10 July 2018

The latest release of Surpass has seen a number of new innovative features introduced to the assessment platform. In this article, we will introduce some of the additions that are hotly anticipated by the Surpass Community. However, if you would like a more comprehensive overview of all updates, these are available, as always, from the Knowledge Base. If you’re an existing Surpass Community member you can contact your Account Manager for details of how to access this information. If you are not currently a Surpass user, and you are interested in finding out more about these, or any other features,…

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Filed under: BTL News, Case Studies, Feature Walkthrough, Industry News, Services, Surpass Platform, Video, e-Assessment

GDPR and beyond with BTL and the Surpass Community

26 May 2018

GDPR and beyond with BTL and the Surpass Community Like most, I’m sure you are now pleased that the GDPR 25th May deadline has passed. GDPR has been one of the biggest topics of the assessment community in recent months and perhaps it has only been the tip of the iceberg of a data cleaning revolution. Regardless of whether you are outside or inside of the EU, GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) will have had an impact on how you view, handle, store, and share personal data. BTL, like many of its partners, have worked hard to ensure that we…

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Filed under: BTL News, Industry News, Press Release, Webinars

Latest features added to Surpass – Winter 2017 / 2018

2 March 2018

We’re often told by Surpass users that one major benefit of being part of the community is the regular feature updates to the product as a result of collaboration between the BTL innovation team and client requests, based on changes taking place within the industry. Since our last update article, in addition to the regular mail-outs by the documentation and account management teams, Surpass pre-release webinars have been used to introduce key upcoming features and give the Surpass community an opportunity to ask questions before the update is deployed. An archive of recordings is available at btl.com/surpass/pastwebinars. If you’re interested…

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Filed under: BTL News, Industry News, Surpass Features, Surpass Platform, Video, Webinars, e-Assessment

Surpass Conference 2017 – Delegate Views

12 October 2017

Once again, Surpass Conference was a huge success thanks to a wealth of input from the Surpass Community. Presentation videos, photos, and other materials from the conference will be available soon at conference.surpass.com. In the meantime, please enjoy these highlights and let us know what you enjoyed most about this year’s event.

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Filed under: BTL News, Case Studies, Industry News, Opinions, Surpass Platform, Video, e-Assessment

Should your poor internet connection prevent you moving to e-assessment?

11 July 2017

Although more locations have access to stable internet and confidence in internet stability is increasing, it still doesn’t take much for the internet connection to fail or stall. It might surprise you to learn that many areas still don’t have fibre broadband connections, and bandwidth contention can be an issue. It only has to happen for a few minutes, but the impact can be significant if your exam software is data intensive or relies on a constant and stable connection. Surpass: The Assessment Platform includes an auto-updating secure delivery client, which can be easily installed on test centre computers. This…

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Filed under: A Day in the life, BTL News, Case Studies, International, Surpass Platform, Video, e-Assessment

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