News story

WJEC Successfully Deliver First Ever A-Level Examinations On-screen Using BTL Surpass

Shipley, United KingdomLearning NewsBTL

BTL Group Ltd is delighted to announce that, during the summer of 2009, WJEC - the Cardiff-based awarding body - successfully delivered the first ever on-screen A-Level examinations in England and Wales, using BTL’s Surpass e-Assessment solution.

WJEC is amongst a number of leading UK examination boards who use BTL's Surpass to develop and deliver high stakes examinations such as A-Levels, GCSEs and NVQs. GCE Applied ICT and GCE Applied Business were the WJEC qualifications which had units assessed on-screen this summer. The examinations included innovative and engaging content, including video (avatars) and audio.

The e-Assessments were delivered at WJEC examination centres (schools and colleges), through the medium of Welsh and English, via a secure LAN (Local Area Network) connection. One of the key features of the examinations was the combination of computer and human marking, allowing WJEC the flexibility to include both subjective questions, for example, open-ended free-response, and objective ones, for example, multiple choice questions.

Keith Myers, BTL Managing Director at BTL, says 'We are extremely pleased to see that WJEC are leading the way in taking A-Levels on-screen. BTL Surpass is a tried, tested and trusted system that is capable of successfully delivering high stakes, high-volume examinations and we are delighted that it has been used to deliver the first ever A-Levels done as e-Assessments. We expect that, due to the success of this roll out, other examination boards will follow suit.'