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Pearson onscreen platform installation woes

IT_Man_Dan

By IT_Man_Dan
in Educational Software

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DanTheLacky

DanTheLacky

Posted
Posted
"New software upgrade available

________________________________________

 

We have released a new version of the software which has some minor improvements and bug fixes.

 

Please note that this is not currently a mandatory upgrade but if you have been experiencing issues where the Test Player crashes upon launch or when a candidate logs into a test, then it is recommended to install this new version as it resolves this problem.

 

If you would like to upgrade please follow the below links to the installation guides"

 

"Please note that this is not currently a mandatory upgrade" is my favourite part, lately *touches huge piece of wood* these have worked with little problem so I aint touching it!!!!

 

Last couple have not been mandatory, left them well alone!!!!

  • 4 weeks later...
bald_pig

bald_pig

Posted
Posted
"New software upgrade available

________________________________________

 

We have released a new version of the software which has some minor improvements and bug fixes.

 

Please note that this is not currently a mandatory upgrade but if you have been experiencing issues where the Test Player crashes upon launch or when a candidate logs into a test, then it is recommended to install this new version as it resolves this problem.

 

If you would like to upgrade please follow the below links to the installation guides"

 

"Please note that this is not currently a mandatory upgrade" is my favourite part, lately *touches huge piece of wood* these have worked with little problem so I aint touching it!!!!

 

We've had crashes and we have an exam Thursday, why hasn't the exams officer mentioned this! :mad:

Zourous

Zourous

Posted
Posted
Probably scared like I am of introducing more problems. Also the updates often require reinstalling every element which is quite off putting and a lot of work. We've got use to the quirks now so it's better the devil you know.
Sylv3r

Sylv3r

Posted
Posted
The last e-mail I had from them said the update was optional - I think I received this last week, so I haven't bothered, unless theres a compulsory update out since.
Sam_Brown

Sam_Brown

Posted
Posted
The last e-mail I had from them said the update was optional - I think I received this last week, so I haven't bothered, unless theres a compulsory update out since.

 

Same. Not keen on going round manually updating all the workstations.

F3000

F3000

Posted
Posted
We are just coming to the end of our first proper test using this and found that we had to start each Pupil off one at a time, anymore and they would keep failing. This was probally due to using wireless laptops (I know! the exam officer insisted). It continues to work fine after doing that.
Sam_Brown

Sam_Brown

Posted
Posted

Two exams today with 30 students in each. No major issues with the exams themselves.

 

Only issues were due to new students being added to the exams. We had to delete the existing database to enable us to re-download the exams but by deleting the database we had to recreate our invigilators and rooms again. Not a massive issue but still a bit of a pain. The only other issue was that as we were using a different room to usual we had to point to the invigilator machine manually as students usually get confused if we leave it to them to do.

WikusVanDeMerwe

WikusVanDeMerwe

Posted
Posted (edited)

Well, 23 pages of people having similar issues to me is actually quite re-assuring...

 

Being generally brave we have our Invigilator software running on a Laptop... The workstations (pc's and laptops) will find the Invigilator and commence their testing (assuming you manually input the hostname) alas though the last set of exams we ran (although claiming to be complete and nothing complained once) did not upload their results to the pearson servers so someone's going to have to manually upload the file extracted from the client via some other "Secure Gateway" which Pearson tout... I'm not exactly filled with confidence.

 

Quite frankly the POP software has turned into a running joke around here and I'm busy collecting evidence to launch some devilishly worded email at the POP inbox as this 'online testing' software is anything but. This is not only a step backwards, it's an endurance marathon backwards and it makes me wonder if Pearson even have any tech's to test this junk out before releasing it.

 

What annoys me more than anything else about the whole process is that our students will go away from our business with the impression that we can't run an exam (and when we can it doesn't work).

 

 

 

 

Edit: Just had someone pop (see what I did there?) over and inform me we've got 8 users who all need to sit an exam on laptops, so that'll be 9 laptops all in running this stuff, what fun, I can't wait, deep joy (and so on).

Edited by WikusVanDeMerwe
update
  • Thanks 1
speckytecky

speckytecky

Posted
Posted
We are a Special School for boys with Emotional and Behavioral difficulties. We have run one BTEC PE module successfully but it was a mare to do, several resets required which for our boys is one step beyond. Luckily all but one managed to get through without any great upheaval; the one lad I ended up having to move to a different PC and bless him he completed it in the end but I think in his circumstances I'd have kicked off myself!
jim_potter

jim_potter

Posted
Posted

I'm using a central server for administrator, an invigilator in the exam room (so on the same VLAN, you need to point invigilator to the admin server) and the client machines pick up the invigilator automatically. Well, thats how I did it.

 

I don't think you can automate it. Do it by hand. Its only once a year.

 

I haven't had it go wrong yet...

 

Jim

LazyFanatic

LazyFanatic

Posted
Posted
We have run this for the first time this year and have had very few problems. The odd 'loss of focus' which is sorted by the invigilators. One computer problem that we just moved the student to another computer (we always have a spare in the room). The Administrator is run on a classroom teacher's computer and the teacher downloads the candidates and sets up the exam. Myself and the teachers set up the computers to the login screen before the exam and it works very well. I would not have contemplated running this from laptops though tbh.
Sam_Brown

Sam_Brown

Posted
Posted

Ugh. Finally having so issues. Almost convinced they are end user issues but try explaining that to the powers that be...

 

1) Usual "loss of focus" but the usual keyboard combination to unlock didn't work. Turned out the POP Player had just completely crashed. Luckily could get them logged in on another computer and could "recover" but disrupted the exam a bit.

 

2) Student started the exam and apparently it just went straight to the "exam completed".

 

Anyone else had either of these? We've been running the exams for about a year and outside the first exam where we had issues not had anything go wrong since.

  • 2 weeks later...
bossman

bossman

Posted
Posted

I know this sounds daft but is this the "Promissor" software which was used for ICT years ago or a different software altogether?

 

Excuse my ignorance but I have just been informed that our PE department want to use it as their online exams base, I suppose I will have to install all over again to get the latest release hehe!

 

From reading this thread it looks like it's still as bad as ever then?

Boredguy

Boredguy

Posted
Posted

Thankfully Promissor and this software is different.... To be honest we found it so much easier than Promissor to get installed and running. Even the updates went on smoothly but we appear to be in the minority.

 

However the PE department have decided they are not going to bother doing the BTec exams in the future so I can uninstall it from the server and workstations :)

timbo343

timbo343

Posted
Posted
I know this sounds daft but is this the "Promissor" software which was used for ICT years ago or a different software altogether?

 

Excuse my ignorance but I have just been informed that our PE department want to use it as their online exams base, I suppose I will have to install all over again to get the latest release hehe!

 

From reading this thread it looks like it's still as bad as ever then?

 

I vaguely remember Promissor, we have had so many online exam software packages i forget which one is which but the Pearson on is the easiest i have worked with yet - for us, it just works though had to read the manual a few times and have a few demo tests and even created my own How To guide for myself and the Exams officer.

bossman

bossman

Posted
Posted

Admin server software installed and communicating with Pearson the administrator dashboard installed on the Exam officers workstation picking up the admin server, invigilator software installed on the teacher workstations of those rooms designated all working.

 

All that is left is the clients, how has everyone else dealt with the client side as the software requires the invigilator workstation details when installed?

 

I have been given 2 weeks notice of exams pending so really need to get moving with this any help would be appreciated :)

timbo343

timbo343

Posted
Posted

What we do is install the client software on the clients and make sure the invigilator software is running too so that each machine can discover the invigilator machine.

 

We use impero to send keyboard commands to the client machines. Alternatively we have about 20 mins to setup a room to get it ready and in that time we run round the machines (max 20) and make sure everything is ok. To be honest it doesn't take long. It's a pity their software doesn't have something hardcoded or a variable that we can set during install to point to a specific machine and then when the client loads it automatically picks the invigilator machine up.

Steve21

Steve21

Posted
Posted

We didn't bother putting in the details during install, if you've opened the firewall ports internally it should auto detect the invigilator machines when it opens and give you a list. (Guess that depends on your VLANs etc)

 

Steve

bossman

bossman

Posted
Posted
Does the software create any reg keys with Invigilator workstation details that we could put out to the different machines in each individual room if you get my drift?

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