ECDL Invigilating - ICT technician role

[clm]

Wondered how many schools run the qualification of ECDL Level1 or Level 2?

How many of you (ICT technicians) actually are the Invidulatiors for ECDL in your school, or who are your internal invigilators?

[FN-GM]

Our schools run it and no IT person does Invigilating. Just because its on a computer doesn't automatically make it an IT job

[hardtailstar]

Our Exam Officer brings in invigilators to do it.

 

As far as I'm aware that the Teachers and technicians are not allowed to be in the exam, although that could just be our school

[Linfit]

We run it and the invigilators are a sub set of our normal exam invigilators. They have to do the on-line training, and be registered with BCS for that role, but otherwise its no different to any other external exam. There is nothing in the regs that says that IT technical staff can't be in the room - some schools do and some don't, and will depend on how reliable the exams have been (getting them to work consistently can be tricky) but they are there to provide tech support not to supervise the exam. Edited December 9, 2016 by Linfit

[SHimmer45]

Our schools run it and no IT person does Invigilating. Just because its on a computer doesn't automatically make it an IT job

 

very much this & a BIG problem imo with alot of things being dumped on IT because it has a computer and or a plug

[Meldrew]

We do it and our understanding is we have to be registered as invigilators in order to setup the room ready for the exam, but the exam is actually invigilated by normal invigilators, not us. We just logon to the PCs, load up the website and make sure everything is ready to go. We've had enough issues with ECDL that we prefer to ensure its ready to go at the start.

 

Meldrew

[elsiegee40]

My governor school does ECDL. The IT staff have no role in invigilation. The school has exam invigilators it uses.

[rad]

We ran this last year. When it was the odd one or two students, my IT Tech colleague had to do the invigilating. When they did a mass of them, they bought in the Exam Invigilators.

[Techykev]

My school runs the ECDL exams, as a technician I log on all the PCs and check everything is working. I don't invigilate, (the school provide invigilators) but I am on hand for the first 10 minutes or so just in case.

[chrisbradbury]

We run also ECDL. Ofter 4 rooms at a time.

We check log all the machines on beforehand. Check the keyboards and mouses are working. Then one member of staff hangs around per 'area' just in case anything *technical* happens. Each room has an actual exam invigilator on top of that.

Saying that, every IT 'issue' we've had so far has been students not being able to remember their password (not our problem) or students not being able to understand what the question is asking and therefore thinking the computer's broken.

[Zourous]

Does anyone know what pluggin ECDL uses? I've got 3 exams starting early tomorrow and I'm told a pluggin needs updating (adobe flash maybe ??). I've got no documentation and not sure I'll get a chance to call support beforehand. Typical last minute dot com.

[chrisbradbury]

Assuming you're using the PSIOnline system, their System Requirements page has all the software downloads you need

https://ecdluk.psionline.com/phoenix/s/login/sysreq.do

 

If you're using IE, you need the 'PSI In-application Plugin'

If you're using Chrome, you can use the 'PSI In-application Extension for Chrome'

 

We use IE as it's easier to GPO the required settings.

Edited May 4, 2017 by chrisbradbury

[mullet_man]

Does anyone know what pluggin ECDL uses? I've got 3 exams starting early tomorrow and I'm told a pluggin needs updating (adobe flash maybe ??). I've got no documentation and not sure I'll get a chance to call support beforehand. Typical last minute dot com.

 

You need the PSI plugin from the link Chris has posted above. It's an MSI and is easily pushed out via a GPO. It's a tiny program and takes seconds to install.

 

You can run the exams with Java too but they were always flakey so would highly recommend using the plugin. Had no issues since using the plugin.

 

You also need to make sure the exams ordered are for the right version of office you have installed.

[Sylv3r]

We don't do the invigilation, but we get that many phonecalls about this crashing out etc, we might as well do as we are never away from the room when the exam is taking place!

[chrisbradbury]

but we get that many phonecalls about this crashing out etc

 

 

Strange, never had a single problem with it. The only issues we have are students forgetting their passwords and students not understanding the question so thinking the test's broken!

[mullet_man]

We don't do the invigilation, but we get that many phonecalls about this crashing out etc, we might as well do as we are never away from the room when the exam is taking place!

 

Are you using the plugin? Since we moved to that we've had about two calls relating to the exams and we've done lots of exams over the last year.

 

The java based exams were a nightmare and we'd have a few calls almost ever time they ran exams and did the practice exams.

[Zourous]

Thanks guys that saved me. I got in early and sorted it, probably before support lines where even open.

[Sylv3r]

Thanks for the heads up - i'm 99% certain we are using the plugin but I'll give it a look just incase.

[Liam]

We run it and I'm an invigilator . I'm the trust ict manager but I'm

Only used in extreme circumstances.. I don't mind doing it.. it's not often I get chance to meet kids these days so it's nice to put face to names etc..

[KibosJ]

Me and the technicians used to invigilate the exams until I said they need to find proper invigilators. We now have invigilators come in for the exams or a member of SLT does it.

 

We used to stay around for a bit to make sure there were no problems, but since switching to the plug in and chrome rather than Java and IE we tend not to have any issues.

[denzal2k4]

Quick question about the ECDL's, are the students allowed to use the Office built in help, we have someone taking the exam currently who is just typing most questions into help and it guides you through the process ie "insert a mailmerge", feels a little like cheating to me, but can't see anything that says they aren't allowed to....this same student was also googling the question during his previous exam (which I did report), but again can't see anything that says they aren't allowed too.

[KibosJ]

Quick question about the ECDL's, are the students allowed to use the Office built in help, we have someone taking the exam currently who is just typing most questions into help and it guides you through the process ie "insert a mailmerge", feels a little like cheating to me, but can't see anything that says they aren't allowed to....this same student was also googling the question during his previous exam (which I did report), but again can't see anything that says they aren't allowed too.

 

We have never had any fail because of using the built-in help. Google is a big no though. I'm surprised it's not like the Pearson ones that can detect applications opening/windows focus.

[vimagoes]

very much this & a BIG problem imo with alot of things being dumped on IT because it has a computer and or a plug

 

How right you are!!! I have been asked to take care of laminators and even the fish tank among other weird things just because it has a plug!!!!!!! So my answer is with a question? "Is it connected to our network or is it a domain member? - they put a brick face and expel "I dunno...." So I say "Well I am telling you that it is not, so it is not an IT problem"

 

Invigilating exams? Not an IT problem neither.

Edited May 8, 2017 by vimagoes