YouTestMe - GetCertified

Features

General Information

The features contained in YouTestMe – GetCertified are tailored to meet the major demands that testing facilities, educational institutions and businesses may encounter.
Go to Introductory Documentation Package page to view and download the initial documentation and manuals.

Personal Profile

Each user has a profile page containing personal details, their role, assigned tests, group and pool membership and achieved certificates. User passwords may be changed through this window manually, or generated by the system and sent by email.

Profiles

This part of the application contains several modules. The first and perhaps most important is a table that contains all users in the system. This table’s columns can be filtered, ordered and searched for easier manipulation and organization.

The second thing is the role system – each user is granted a role that defines their access to certain parts of the application. Those users that have a higher level of permissions can create new roles and assign them to users. Excel spreadsheets can also be used to import users into the application. Through this part of the application, people with higher level permissions can handle the register requests for new users.

User Groups

Users in the system can be organized into groups. Each group can have either one or no parent groups, and an unlimited number of subgroups. Groups can be "Active" or "Inactive". Only the users from "Active" groups may be added as members to tests and pools. If a group is set to "Inactive" then all of its subgroups are automatically set to inactive. Members of a certain groups are also members of its parent group. Group members can have one out of two ranks in the group: "User" or "Manager". If a user has the "Manager" rank on a certain group, then they automatically manage all of its sub-groups as well. A user with corresponding privileges can make their own tree organization of groups, while users with higher level privileges can manage any group in the system. Users can make a sub-tree only to those groups where they have the "Manager" rank. The User Interface makes sure that at each step you have a complete overview of your current layout and its dependencies. Once created, you can assign users to specific groups and manage them.

Questions

The objects that contain questions are called Question Pools. They can hold a theoretically infinite number of questions. Access to the Pools is entirely personal, but the creator(s) can make it publicly available. Every user can make their personal Question Pools. The pool creator(s) can select which members can use the pool. It is also possible to import questions into pools by using the application’s Excel template. The questions in the application are sorted by difficulty: Easy, Medium and Hard. Besides this, questions can be differentiated according to their type:

1. Single choice – Test participants can choose one of the offered answers and only one is correct.
2. Multiple choice – More than one of the offered answers may be correct.
3. Ordering – Place the offered answers into correct order.
4. Matching – The participants need to match the answers from the left side to the ones on the right.
5. True or False – The participants need to review if the given statement is true or false.
6. Open question – The participants need to review if the given statement is true or false.
7. Fill in the blanks – Blank spaces are left for participants to enter their answers in. Usually involves completing sentences.
8. Essay – Requires the user to type in a free form of text on the given theme.

First six question types can be graded automatically, while the last two require a test manager to grade them. Also, by using the built-in question editor it is possible to customize questions in various ways. For example, essay questions can be used to present mathematical functions and expressions or pictures and HTML content. The main goal of the editor is to support creativity.

Test

Within the application, there is an implemented Test Generator whose main purpose is to drastically reduce the amount of time spent creating tests and evaluating. It is very simple to use, since it is only needed to enter certain test parameters, assign to members and choose a grading system. Here are the parameters that need to be entered:
1. Test name
2. Test type
3. Access
4. Test duration type and duration (if the test is timed)
5. Report type and content
6. Test look type
Optionally, a test description can be entered and the option to randomize the question and answer order.
After typing in these parameters, the creator proceeds to the next step where they need to enter question pool resources for that test, set the test availability, optionally define the frequency factor and set a cut-off date. The only pools that can be chosen are those where the test creator is a member. Entering individual questions is also possible and this way test managers can add questions to both the test and a pool. Test availability represents the time period that the test will be available for taking. Frequency factor is an optional feature that represents several frequency attributes that can be attached to each question: Never, Rarely, Medium, Often and Always. Each of these attributes represents a percentage of how likely is the question to appear in the test. Another optional feature is a cut-off date. This feature serves to avoid the repetition of questions in consecutive tests. After setting all these parameters, they can be reviewed in a table.

The next step involves setting the number of test versions. A test version represents a set of questions created according to the parameters defined in the previous step. Basically, if the resource is big enough, every test participant might receive a different test version, which eliminates potential cheating and copying answers.
Besides entering the number of test versions, this step involves setting the number of points awarded for correct answers and penalty for wrong answers according to question difficulty (easy, medium and hard). Once the values have been set, the table will show the maximum number of points that may be earned in the test, the number of questions of each difficulty and the total number of questions.
Excel Quiz Template
Excel Questions Template
Excel Users Template

The main feature of YouTestMe – GetCertified is certainly the Certificate. In this step of the test generator test managers are able to create custom-branded certificates that will be awarded to participants in case they go over the pass mark. It is possible to choose between several certificate templates which decide the placement of visual and textual elements. The visual elements of a certificate are the background, certificate logo and company logo, while the textual ones are title, subtitle, company name and connected test information. You can download a template of certificate generated in YouTestMe - GetCertified.

Final step in the test making process lets the test creator review their parameters, go back to change them if necessary and save the test as a template. Test templates represent a way of reusing tests. By using a template, the test generator is able to create tests with the different questions, by using the same predefined parameters. In case the resource is spacious and by setting the correct cut-off date, it is possible to use one template numerous times, and receive different results every time. This way, the time invested into test creation process is reduced even further.

The test has now been generated – each test version has been defined. Some of the initial parameters from the first step may be changed (more precisely those parameters that do not affect the test generation process). However, before sending the test, a grading system needs to be defined – either chosen from the list or created. The grading system defines each participant’s performance according to a grading label translated from the number of points.

Now the test is ready to be distributed. Assigning the participants to the test can be performed either from the list of all users or filtered according to the course-class combination. The list of participants in the test set this way does not need to be final, additional test requests can be sent even after the initial sending, in case some participant got omitted.

A test can have more than one manager. The user that created the test is automatically its first manager, and they can later set additional managers, if necessary. The additional test managers possess the same administration rights such as the test creator – they can view/change the parameters, send additional requests, view reports and resolve grades.

Besides using the Test Generator to create new tests, it is possible to handpick the questions from pools. This way, every participant will receive the same test - there are no test versions involved. In addition to that, some parameters such as the frequency factor and the cut-off date, used during the generation process become obsolete, and do not need to be defined. However, manually created tests can be copied.

Question Assistance represents certain levels of help students get when participating in a test. For example, a student doesn’t know the correct answer to a certain question and they require assistance. They can click the Question Assistance button and choose one of the following assistance types:

- Learning feedback (Hint) – a preselected extract from the literature, chosen by the professor is revealed; - Remove one incorrect answer; - Increase the question duration (if it is a time per question type of test);

When a participant chooses an assistance type, it is carefully archived in the system and included in the reports later. The professors can even define a penalty (negative points) for each one.

Taking a Test

Test participants can start taking the test through the personal profile, notification sidebar, through active tests in the quick look on the Tests page, or by clicking the link sent by email. In case of any interruptions such as power shortages, internet connection disruptions, accidental browser closing, etc. – the user is able to return to the test and continue working, if it is still available. If the test is time-limited, the timer will continue working, regardless if the user is in the test or out of it.

Tests can also be exported to print-ready PDF, alongside with the answer key that can help test manager to grade tests.
Example of test exported to PDF
Example of answer key exported to PDF

Reporting

One of the most important aspects of every testing process is the manner in which the reports are distributed and archived. The system has a reporting system that tracks both personal statistics and the group ones. Before creating the test, test creators choose whether the report will include an overview of correct and wrong answers alongside the achieved percentage or just the achieved percentage. It is also possible to show reports only upon a test manager’s approval. In case a test possesses questions that cannot be resolved automatically (fill in the blanks, essay), the reports will be available immediately after a test manager resolves them.