As this year comes to a close, I take this opportunity to reflect on not just this year, but the last two years — what many of us think of as the “pandemic era.” A lot has changed in this time – not just at ExamSoft, but in the world, in our everyday lives. While I won’t attempt to address the broader changes, I can share what’s been going on at ExamSoft, and what some of our future plans are.
The pandemic transformed how many large-scale assessments were delivered, and we’ve all had to adapt to that. At ExamSoft, we’ve made many important changes and improvements since the start of 2020, launching ExamID and ExamMonitor in early 2020 before we knew how critical it would be for our clients that year. We also introduced new question types such as polygon hot spots, select all that apply, and cloze. We released rubrics for Enterprise and our first integration with Turnitin, which allows Turnitin customers to seamlessly submit exam-taker documents for a Similarity Score.
We’ve also added helpful new exam-taker tools, including a graphing calculator, spreadsheets, a scientific calculator, and highlighters. We introduced Arabic for Examplify in 2020 and have just released support for Ukrainian as well. We’ve worked to improve our Examplify QA and testing processes, making substantive changes in Q3 2021. And along the way, we’ve made numerous user experience enhancements, upgraded our front-end and back-end technical architecture, and developed support for additional devices and new operating system updates.
As an organization, we understand that we play a large role in assessment and that means a great deal of responsibility as well. As we continually strive to improve our processes and products, it’s important to share our progress. Here are some of the improvements we plan to make next year:
- Accessibility improvements, including support for screen readers during secure exams
- Additional question types
- Enhanced spreadsheet functionality
- LMS integration improvements
- Streamline lab installers
- Exam sections
While it hasn’t been easy or perfect, we do believe that we’ve made a positive contribution to pandemic-era assessment, and we plan to continue developing and improving for all users. As we conclude this year, we want to let our clients and users know that we hear you and we are working to provide the best product and experience possible.
Happy New Year!
Caleb Winn
Senior Director, Product Management
