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Joan Phaup, Questionmark: This is Joan Phaup from Questionmark, and today I’m talking with Vicki Sahr, an online technician with Fox Valley Technical College. Vicki has had a lot to do with getting faculty at the college involved with the use of Questionmark Perception. Vicki, could you start by telling us a little about Fox Valley Technical College?

Vicki Sahr, Fox Valley Technical College: Fox Valley Technical College is one of sixteen colleges in Wisconsin. We offer technical and degree diplomas.

Joan: And how are you using Questionmark Perception at the college?

Vicki: Questionmark is used across the curriculum to offer online testing for various programs, such as nursing, electronics, natural sciences, and we use it in our criminal justice program extensively.

Joan: Would you mind telling us a little bit more about that criminal justice program? That’s kind of an interesting thing.

Vicki: We offer federal programming, federal training, and our faculty use it to test students across the country and across the globe. And using Questionmark allows us to do that in a secure environment. In fact what we do is that there’s an organization that does missing and exploited children training. Okay, they train detectives across the country. And in order to handle a certain tool to identify stuff and to help them to collect evidence, they have to go through training. And once that training is complete, they have to take a test online to become certified. And so the test is online through Questionmark. Once the person has taken the test, it automatically emails back their results, and they have to have a passing score. I can’t remember if it’s 80% or 70%, and then they know if they pass, and then they’re certified. So it’s kind of cool. And we train, you know, folks all over the country through this missing and exploited children. I don’t know if you’ve heard Amber Alert, you know about Amber Alert.

Joan: Oh yes.

Vicki: When a child goes missing. Okay. Fox Valley TriTech is the source of that. We train those folks across the country. We use Questionmark as a basis for training and testing.

Joan: Now you gave a presentation at the Questionmark Users’ Conference about teaching faculty to use Perception. I’d like to find out which is the greatest challenge in getting the faculty involved in this. The greatest challenge is that we have faculty that are sometimes technology illiterate, and we have to bring them along with us from the grass roots on up, and show them that it’s very intuitive and easy to test their students online, that the technology shouldn’t be a hindrance, that it should actually be a benefit for them.

Joan: So how do you do that? What strategies do you use to encourage them?

Vicki: We offer various types of training for them. We can either train them one on one, in a group setting in a live classroom, or we can train them online. Or we have a blended learning environment to train them how to use Questionmark. So that whatever type of way they’re best at learning, that’s how we deliver it to them. Then, on top of that, we offer them support so that they don’t have to actually key in some of their questions. We have folks here that can do that for them, so that they can just focus on getting the content ready, and then have somebody else actually key it in for them. But after the initial key-in is done, then they are responsible for their content and how to administer it.

Joan: So suppose I’m a faculty member and I’m kind of worried about using online testing. What are some of the things you’d say to me about that?

Vicki: First of all, we tell the faculty, relax. This isn’t new. Your students are actually wanting it. Your students are pretty computer savvy, and are looking forward to online testing versus coming to the classroom to test. They would rather have the in-classroom, basically all content, and to test offline.

Joan: Do you have any particular success story of a faculty member who was really reticent about using online testing that you were able to turn into a convert?

Vicki: Wow. They’re all that way, really. They’re so apprehensive to start, that once we get them going— One comes to mind. I have an anatomy instructor who first really didn’t want to do it, but her students were asking for it, basically begging. And so what I said was, “Why don’t we just start with the multiple choice questions first. I’ll walk you through it. I’ll help you all along. And we’ll just do that.” Well that worked for about two tests, and the students just thoroughly enjoyed it. So she said, “Well, what about these diagrams, you know, Vicki, how can we do this online? How can we take it from a paper and pencil to do diagrams?” And I said, “Well, there’s many ways we can do that. We can do a click and drag. We could do a matching. We could do voice.” You know, I offered her a variety of suggestions, and she was astounded. And I said, “Well, which one do you want?” And she said, “Well let’s try the matching first.” So that worked well for the next couple of tests, and she said, “You know, we’re coming up with this skeletal exam.” And what they used to do was have a practical, where they, the students would physically come into the lab. The bones would be placed out. Stickers would be placed on the bone to identify the specific anatomical location. And I said, “You know, Becky, you could really do this online.” And she said, “Well how?” And I said, “Let’s take pictures of these bones and put them out there. We can rotate them, you know, so they don’t physically have to pick them up. All they have to do is look online.” And these, I guess she’s converted. She would be my good success story. She took it from, you know, multiple choice all the way up to, you know, having virtual bone tests online.

Joan: That’s great. What tips do you have for other colleges that would like to get faculty more involved in online testing, Vicki?

Vicki: I think the main thing is to set up procedures, so that faculty know exactly where they’re going, what needs to be done, who’s going to do it, and by what time. The other thing is to actually have the technical expert on hand to help the faculty person and guide them. What we’ve found, you just can’t release the faculty to the software to get them to go. You actually have to help them along. They are subject experts. You have to have the technical expert behind it. The other thing is to have a good software vendor who supports not only the technical person but also helps the technical person support their faculty. And that’s what we have in Questionmark.

Joan: Well thank you. That was very interesting, and I hope other people take courage from this, and can help their faculty embrace the idea of online testing. Thanks so much, Vicki.

Vicki: You’re welcome.