Thank you Career-Technical teachers, administrators and stakeholders that attended to WebXam Updates session at Ohio ACTE on July 26. We appreciate the opportunity to talk with you about the changes coming to WebXam for the coming year as well as to look back at last year.

The presentation slides may be downloaded here.

WebXam now supports allowing administrators to manage students, teachers and other administrators based on programs. WebXam also supports a custom role for District Testing Coordinators (DTCs). A district should have at least one DTC and may have as many as is needed. An administrator may serve as a DTC for many districts.

Programs have been initially populated using testing data from last school year, but will need updated by administrators and DTCs.

View documentation about programs in our revamped WebXam Documentation

Slides from upcoming presentations will be added soon.

If you need support or guidance, please contact WebXam Support

All field tests in the T9 and TA Transportation Pathways have been rescored. Final scores are available via WebXam Reports and new performance standards are set and available on the WebXam About the Tests Page.

Graduating students who have taken a field-tested assessment in the current academic year may retake the finalized assessment once between 5/8/2023 and 6/2/2023 if needed to meet graduation requirements. There is no 30-day remediation period for retaking field tests as part of this policy.

Please see the Ohio Department of Education’s Career Technical Education Career Tech Assessment System website for the full retake policy

Assessment Recommendation

Each student who completes a VT, VP, or VN (FCS) course should participate in an end of course assessment (WebXam) as identified in the program and assessment matrix. Completion of a course is defined as a student who sits for 90% or more of the course and/or earns full or partial credit. Students who were unsuccessful in meeting the minimum proficient assessment score for a course in which the student is currently or had been enrolled may be provided an opportunity to retake.

Retake Policy

WebXam end-of-course assessments may be retaken in the same school year by any CTE student currently enrolled or previously enrolled in a course with a testing requirement. Students should be provided an opportunity to retest after allowing for additional instruction time. This enhances opportunities for students to demonstrate technical skills attainment for the purpose of graduation and report cards. The policy for WebXam same-year retakes includes:

• Students may take an end-of-course test no more than twice per academic school year (each school year begins July 1 and ends June 30)
• A retake must be scheduled at least 30 days after the original assessment was performed
• Field tests may not be retaken due to the length of the tests and earlier closing of the field test window

The testing screen students see while being assessed is changing, a view of the new interface is available here.

The highlighted areas of the screen are as follows:

1. The test the student is taking and their current position in the test
2. The question (along with the scenario and image, if any)
3. The possible responses
4. Quick actions to move to the next or previous question and to mark the current question for later review
5. The gear allows access to additional options, such as a Dark Mode and an Emergency Exit, which logs the student out of WebXam in cases where testing cannot continue.
6. The Submit Test button to be selected when the student completes the test
7. Test Navigation allows the student to navigation to any question on the test with indicators about question status.  See the legend below for meanings.

WebXam is updating the testing screen to improve the reliability, responsiveness and usability of the tests for students.

Starting this year, students will no longer use passwords to access tests in WebXam.  Instead, Access Codes will be generated when test sessions are activated that will work only for that test session. Access Codes are 6-character letter number combinations.

Access Codes can be downloaded at the end of the test activation process as a CSV or as a PDF. They are also available via the Activations Report.

If a student is taking multiple tests on the same day, the Access Code will be the same for each test.

Access Codes are:

• NOT case sensitive. They are presented as uppercase for readability, but lowercase letters can be used.
• Simpler and shorter than passwords
• Active from one hour before a test session begins, to one hour after the activation window ends, outside of that time, the Access Code will not work.

WebXam is changing activation for the following reasons:

• Simplify login for students in testing situations
• Allow students to securely access accounts in non-testing situations
• Improve the security of WebXam

The Center on Education and Training for Employment in collaboration with the Ohio Department of Education and Department of Higher Education, launched an end of test student acknowledgement survey, enhancing a students’ ability to access college transfer credit earned through one of Ohio’s Career-Technical Assurance Guides (CTAGs). The student survey appears at the completion of each WebXam test a student takes associated with one of Ohio’s Career-Technical Assurance Guides (CTAGs).

The student survey allows students, who are proficient on the taken test, to grant permission to Ohio’s public colleges or universities to post transfer credit earned through meeting the requirements of the associated Career-Technical Assurance Guide (CTAG). The student survey enhancement address needs for a uniform method of communication between Ohio’s secondary students and Ohio’s public colleges and universities to simplify awarding credit through career-technical credit transfer (CT²). 

For more information about Career-Technical Assurance Guides (CTAGs), please visit the Ohio Department of Higher Education Career-Technical Articulation and Transfer Page.

In response to the ongoing challenges schools have faced due to COVID-19, the Ohio General Assembly passed House Bill 67 that allows juniors and seniors to use course grades in place of or in addition to test scores for the 2020-2021 school year to meet graduation requirements.

Please review the linked newsletter to learn more.

In response to the ongoing challenges schools face due to COVID-19, the Ohio General Assembly passed an amended version of House Bill 67. HB 67 includes language that allows juniors and seniors to use course grades in place of or in addition to test scores for the 2020-2021 school year to meet graduation requirements. Please review the policy documentation on ODE’s Career-Technical Education Assessment System webpage.

Once details are finalized WebXam will announce and provide data submission templates and grade submission deadlines for participating school districts. School districts must provide the required data during the allowed timeframe to ensure proper reporting. There will be no additional windows for reporting grades.

End-of-course assessments are a way to assess technical knowledge and skill attainment by the students. Teachers can analyze end-of-course assessment data to identify student performance gaps. After identification of student learning gaps, teachers can provide interventions and remediation to students to close the performance gaps. Documentation of technical attainment can allow teachers to better prepare, ultimately improving teacher effectiveness, which is beneficial to the student, the teacher, local programs, and to Ohio business and industry. Schools should post-test juniors and seniors first, and if the grade substitution is advantageous for the student for the 2020-2021 school year, districts may use the grade substitution option.

The Ohio Department of Education and WebXam are pleased to announce that WebXam tests now may be retaken in the same school year by graduating students after allowing for additional instruction time. This change enhances opportunities for students to demonstrate technical skills attainment for the purpose of graduation and report cards. The policy for WebXam same-year retakes includes:

• Graduating students may retake most WebXam tests once in their final school year;
• A retake must be scheduled at least 30 days after the original assessment was performed;
• Field tests may not be retaken due to the length of the tests and earlier closing of the field test window.

Additional information regarding WebXam can be found on the Career-Technical Education Assessment webpage or contact Matt Winkle.