“We acquired Questionmark Perception because the amount of work and time that was being devoted to manually creating tests—making sure they were always locked up, manually corrected and saved on spreadsheets to be analyzed and then shredded—was neither cost nor time efficient,” says McKinley. Securing the paper assessments was a concern. The company suspected that contractors had test questions and answers memorized before taking the exam. Since the tests were manual it was impossible to randomize questions, McKinley said, and it took too a long time to publish different versions of the same exam.

“We needed to address these problems, and one of the first steps we took was to turn to Questionmark,” McKinley explains. Questionmark Perception—together with the Questionmark Secure, which locks down participants’ desktops to eliminate task switching— provides an array of security options to protect the integrity of the company’s tests. “We now have reliable software that ensures us that our high-stakes tests are safe and secure,” says McKinley. “We’re able to randomize questions, prevent tests from being copied and score assessments immediately. Another thing I appreciate about Perception is the reporting feature, which gives us statistics to analyze the results of our assessments and evaluate our questions.”