Thank you to 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.

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

Released March 16, 2021, the newsletter featured topics on:

• Health Science Field Testing
• CETE at BPA and DECA State Competitive Events Conferences in Columbus
• Transportation Systems Validation & Standard Setting
• Construction Technologies and Health Science Old Item Validation
• WebXam Professional Development Offerings

https://static.cete.osu.edu/assessment/newsletter/202203_WebXamNewsletter.html

An archived version of this email newsletter is available here.

Released January 16, 2021, the newsletter featured topics on:

• Winter Pretest Closing January 28th, 2022
• New CTE college credit
• No pretesting for Health Science, including Medical Terminology, Construction Technologies and Health Science
• Old Item Validation is POSTPONED
• Join us for Transportation Systems Item-Writing

An archived version of this email newsletter is available here.

Released December 16, 2021, the newsletter featured topics on:

• New CTE college credit
• No pretesting for Health Science, including Medical Terminology, Construction Technologies and Health Science
• Old Item Validation
• Join us for Transportation Systems Item-Writing
• WebXam User’s Workshop Recordings Available

An archived version of this email newsletter is available here.

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.

Released October 18, 2021, the October newsletter featured topics on:

• 2021-2022 Posttesting Window is Now Open
• WebXam User’s Workshop Recordings Available
• No pretesting for Health Science, including Medical Terminology
• Transportation Systems Item-Writing
• Pastry Performance Assessments
• Transportation Systems Blueprint Planning Survey
• Teacher Review Workshops

An archived version of this email newsletter is available here.

Released September 14, 2021, the April newsletter featured topics on:

• Pretesting closing
• NO pretesting for Health Science
• Post Testing opens in October
• 2021 WebXam User’s Workshop
• Baking and Pastry Performance Assessments
• Item-writing in 2021-2022
• Teacher Review Workshops

An archived version of this email newsletter is available here.