Mickie Rops Consulting

ISO/IEC has released a new international standard: ISO/IEC 23988:2007 Information technology - A code of practice for the use of information technology (IT) in the delivery of assessments.

The aims of the standard are to provide a means of:

• showing that the delivery and scoring of the assessment are fair and do not disadvantage some groups of candidates, for example those who are not IT literate;
• showing that a summative assessment has been conducted under secure conditions and is the authentic work of the candidate;
• showing that the validity of the assessment is not compromised by IT delivery;
• providing evidence of the security of the assessment, which can be presented to regulatory and funding organizations (including regulatory bodies in education and training, in industry or in financial services);
• establishing a consistent approach to the regulations for delivery, which should be of benefit to assessment centers who deal with more than one assessment distributer;
• giving an assurance of quality to purchasers of "off-the-shelf" assessment software.

The 39 page in-depth standard can be purchased and downloaded from the ANSI store.  All associations considering or offering computer- or internet-based testing (and all associated service providers/vendors) would benefit from a review of this informative standard which, by the way, applies to both low and high-stakes assessments.