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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.
[one-half-first] Surpass: The Assessment Platform includes an auto-updating secure delivery client, which can be easily installed on test centre computers. This easy to install candidate software performs two important tasks. The first is to secure the device, preventing the candidate from accessing non-approved software during the exam. The second is to provide resilience to the exam session. Exam content can be securely synced prior to the start of the exam, reducing the load on the internet connection; once synced, there is no need for a constant connection. Candidate’s responses can be uploaded once the exam has finished and a connection is available. Having the choice to use this approach gives individual centres the flexibility to work based on their knowledge of local disruptions.
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The importance of the role played by the SecureClient in enabling offline testing is illustrated in this recent example by a Pitman Test Centre in London.
Mahar Uddin is involved in the delivery of high-stakes summative assessments in the centre. During a recent high-profile examination series, the London centre suffered an unexpected internet outage. Data from services such as the Down Detector illustrate the wider scale of the issue. It is not uncommon in big cities, particularly during peak operating hours, for internet connectivity to suffer.

Mahar reported that: “It wasn’t stressful because the platform worked perfectly. I knew we could run the exam and upload later. This meant we had more time to let our internet provider resolve the issue without having a knock-on effect to all of the exams.”

If Mahar had been delivering an Internet-Based Examination (IBE) via an online only provider, then the situation would certainly have been very stressful and candidates would have been impacted. As it was, Mahar was using the Surpass SecureClient with the test content downloaded beforehand, which meant the exam continued without interruption.

If you require any further information about test delivery options that match your testing scenarios, then take a look at our Delivery Selection Tool.

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