by Alan Mead, PhD, Chief Psychometrician
You’ve heard the mantra: “Good, fast, and cheap – you can pick two!” So, if Certiverse lowers the cost and increases the speed of exam development, how can the exams be any good? “Good” means not just comprising high-quality items and a great testing experience, but also meeting industry standards for validity and defensibility. As the organization’s Chief Psychometrician, this is the most important question I have to answer, and there are three complementary parts to my response.
The first piece is “innovation.” Certiverse has built technology that incorporates automation, natural language processing, and machine learning to make it easier to create exams. Just as farmers are becoming more productive with temperature and moisture sensors, aerial images, and GPS-guided tractors, so Certiverse subject matter experts are more productive with powerful and intuitive interfaces, built-in natural language processing and coaching, and useful collaboration tools.
The second reason Certiverse exams break the mold is our focus on SME engagement. We have gamified SME input, allowing competition and recognition among SMEs to drive exam contributions. And Certiverse has pioneered revenue sharing, where an exam program can choose to share a percentage of test fees with the SMEs who helped create the exam.
The last answer is the most mundane: we’ve included all the steps that traditional exam programs use to ensure high quality, including JTA surveys, SME input and review, and psychometric analysis. The difference is that we’ve baked these into an automated system that streamlines within processes and virtually eliminates between-process delays. That is, Certiverse exams are as good as traditional exams because they are made with all the same elements. We didn’t cut corners, we just straightened the road.
