Page ADP Technology Training

2 Page2 Confidential Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. and/or one or more of its direct or indirect affiliates. All rights reserved. Agenda Topic - Introduction to Pearson’s On-Line Testing Solution  Why Online Assessments?  Administrative Site  TestNav  Proctor Caching  Online Resources - Technology Configuration for On-Line Testing  Proctor Caching  Test Delivery  Wireless Networks Best Practices  TestNav Installation Best Practices  TestNav Early Warning System  Firewalls/Content Filters  Issues/Special Considerations  Support Calls – Q&A

3 Page3 Confidential Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. and/or one or more of its direct or indirect affiliates. All rights reserved. Why Online Assessments? Greater efficiency and flexibility  No need to store, ship, or track test materials  Able to track student testing activities in greater detail Faster turnaround of scores  Test responses delivered to Pearson on the day of testing  No student test alerts to resolve Students may be more engaged in an online testing environment

4 Page4 Confidential Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. and/or one or more of its direct or indirect affiliates. All rights reserved. Online Testing Components Administrative Web Site - Used by Test Coordinators, Test Administrators, Technologists, etc.  Manage Student Data  Create Test Sessions  Monitor the Test Session  Resolve Student Data Alerts  Access Reports  Manage User Accounts & Security

5 Page5 Confidential Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. and/or one or more of its direct or indirect affiliates. All rights reserved. Online Testing Components TestNav Used by Students to Take Tests Java Based Client

6 Page6 Confidential Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. and/or one or more of its direct or indirect affiliates. All rights reserved. Online Testing Components Proctor Caching Stores test content locally Reduces the burden on your network and ISP

7 Page7 Confidential Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. and/or one or more of its direct or indirect affiliates. All rights reserved. Online Resources Resources Page TestNav Technology Guidelines Proctor Caching User’s Guide TestNav Early Warning System Reference Manual Downloads for Proctor Caching and TestNav Training for online testing Support Information Toll free Pearson Support Center number ( )

8 Page8 Confidential Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. and/or one or more of its direct or indirect affiliates. All rights reserved. Proctor Caching – Network Diagram

9 Page9 Confidential Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. and/or one or more of its direct or indirect affiliates. All rights reserved. Proctor Caching – How Does it Help? Proctor Caching allows you to pre-cache test content to your local network before the test Reduces burden on your ISP by eliminating redundancy in requests for test content Stores an encrypted local copy of all pre-cached tests. A caching solution is required to ensure the best possible network performance and testing experience within schools

10 Page10 Confidential Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. and/or one or more of its direct or indirect affiliates. All rights reserved. Proctor Caching – Misc. Runs on both Windows and Mac OS X  Windows – A dedicated proctor caching application can be downloaded from Pearson  Mac – The built in Apache web server is used as a caching server by installing an Apache configuration file supplied by Pearson Does not require an underlying server-based operating system TestNav must be configured through the installer or editing the proxysettings.properties file to communicate through Proctor Caching. If all internet traffic must pass through an upstream proxy server, Proctor Caching will need to be configured to communicate through that device. TestNav requests test content from Proctor Caching on port 4480

11 Page11 Confidential Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. and/or one or more of its direct or indirect affiliates. All rights reserved. Proctor Caching – Misc. Pre-Caching a Test  Pre-cache before students test  Change browser settings  Pre-cache test content  Change browser settings back Cache Directories  Windows: “C:\Program Files\NCSPearson\Proctor Caching\CACHE”  Mac: “/private/var/run/proxy/”

12 Page12 Confidential Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. and/or one or more of its direct or indirect affiliates. All rights reserved. Test Delivery – Local Installation Install TestNav on each workstation used for Test Delivery Configure each machine to communicate with the Proctor Caching machine (via the installer or proxysettings.properties file) More challenging to manage than a server installation System automation tools like SMS (Windows) and Apple Remote Desktop (Mac) make local installs much more practical.

13 Page13 Confidential Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. and/or one or more of its direct or indirect affiliates. All rights reserved. Test Delivery – Server Installation Server Workstations Install TestNav on a file share Configure the file share installation to communicate with the Proctor Caching machine (via the installer or proxysettings.properties file) Create a shortcut to the file share installation of TestNav on each workstation used for Test Delivery Easier to manage than a local installation

14 Page14 Confidential Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. and/or one or more of its direct or indirect affiliates. All rights reserved. TestNav Installation Best Practices The TestNav proxysettings.properties file is the only configurable settings file. This file can be edited with Notepad or TextEdit. Editable variables in proxysettings.properties  Proxy_Host - Designates a proctor caching or proxy server IP address  Proxy_Port - Designates a proctor caching or proxy server port number  Primary_Save_Location & Alternate_Save_Location - Designates the Early Warning save locations

15 Page15 Confidential Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. and/or one or more of its direct or indirect affiliates. All rights reserved. TestNav Installation Best Practices Student machine logins will need full access to these directories  TestNav/temp  TestNav/Logs  Early Warning Save Locations Deep Freeze  If you use hard drive imaging tools like Deep Freeze you must exclude the TestNav/Logs and Early Warning System save locations

16 Page16 Confidential Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. and/or one or more of its direct or indirect affiliates. All rights reserved. TestNav Installation Best Practices Network Installation  Do not run the TestNav installer on the File Server itself.  Run the installer on a client workstation and install TestNav to the shared folder on your file server.  Once installed to the file share, edit the proxysettings.properties file to have valid file paths for the save locations. Wireless Networks  Local installation of TestNav  DO NOT overload access points with too many clients.

17 Page17 Confidential Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. and/or one or more of its direct or indirect affiliates. All rights reserved. TestNav TM Early Warning System The TestNav™ Early Warning System (EWS) is designed to save student responses locally in the event of a network interruption. EWS saves the student's responses to an encrypted backup file so the student can either continue testing or exit the system without losing data.  Designate two (2) file save locations for student responses in the event of a connectivity loss to the testing servers. oBest Practice: Primary response location should be a shared location because it allows access to stored student responses from one location. The alternate response location should be a location on the local workstation  Students must have full access to the designated “save locations”.  When connectivity is restored and the students resume into the test, the locally saved responses are transmitted to the testing server and added to the responses already stored there.

18 Page18 Confidential Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. and/or one or more of its direct or indirect affiliates. All rights reserved. Firewalls/Content Filters The following domains and ports must be allowed to pass through your Internet firewall or proxy system. Port 443 is for admin access only Student level traffic is port 80 Hash encryption can inadvertently form a word

19 Page19 Confidential Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. and/or one or more of its direct or indirect affiliates. All rights reserved. Issues/Special Considerations Disable Popup Blocking Software (Administrative Site)‏  A pop-up blocker will block the pre-caching screens from opening on administrative workstations Applications that launch automatically Any applications that may automatically launch on a computer should be configured not to launch during testing sessions. Common applications that may launch automatically include:  Anti-virus software performing automatic updates  Power management software on laptops warning of low batteries  Screen Savers  with Auto message notification

20 Page20 Confidential Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. and/or one or more of its direct or indirect affiliates. All rights reserved. Issues/Special Considerations Screen resolution All ADP tests are authored to a screen resolution of 1024x768 so make sure that your testing machines are capable of 1024x768 resolution Screen Resolutions below this setting will cause an error as TestNav tries to load the test Screen Resolutions above this setting will cause the test to appear smaller than the available screen size.

21 Page21 Confidential Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. and/or one or more of its direct or indirect affiliates. All rights reserved. Support Calls Information needed to diagnose technical issues Session Details  Test Administration name?  Session Name?  Affected student name? Error messages/numbers? What were you doing when the error occurred? Do you have a log file? Basic network configuration  Are you using proctor caching? IP address?  Do you use a proxy server? IP address?  Firewalls/content filters?

22 Page22 Confidential Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. and/or one or more of its direct or indirect affiliates. All rights reserved. Questions? Support Information  Toll free support number ( )‏ 