ALAN Exambase testing

[Guest Guest]

I dont get much chance to look on this forum anymore so i dont know if this has been mentioned;

 

We've just had 70 kids try to use the Exambase sofware to sit their ALAN (Adult Literacy and Numeracy) tests but it kept crashing constantly!!! It was an absolute joke.

 

The problem is with IIS crashing under high volumes (yeah like 70 people is alot when theres 200+ in a year).

 

After a few calls we've found out that the software is not upto the job, they know its not upto the job, and to be frank, dont care. We have been talking to several differant people involved in this over the last 2 weeks and at no point did they mention that it might not work with high numbers of kids. Do they just not give a feck about our childrens education? Obviously not if they couldnt be assed to tell us after ample oppertunity!

 

So be warned, it wont work if you have more than a handful of kids. Apparently the new system will work (maybe, well knowing education in general, probably not) so move of to "catglobal" asap is my advice

[tosca925]

We've only run it with around 20 kids at once so can't really help.

[Guest Guest]

Sorry if i wasnt clear. Im not asking for help, just informing people (which i think is discusting that edexcel and exambase havnt done).

 

Any moron should know that IIS is not a very good start when your relying on it working flawlessly.

 

We are never using it again put it that way! It has just cost us a fortune in wages for exam envidulators. Its a PD day so the kids came in in their own time from as far away as 30miles! And it has made the school look foolish.

 

We have had to issue a written appology to the kids and to the parents for taking time out of their (work) day to drop their kids off for an exam which didnt happen.

[Mr_T]

I must be the exception but I have had 60 kids run on it flawlessly. They do say not to have more than 100kids at at time doing the test on there website where you enter the candidate. That is still obviously 30 more than you had running.

 

Given the choice between the edexcel tests and the RM QCA tests I would take the edexcel ones everytime. I have had no end of hassle with the RM tests.

[Rozzer]

We have had 30 kids on and worked pretty good.

 

Ross

[plexer]

We've had 45'ish kids regularly and no problems at all with it.

 

Ben

[mrforgetful]

Agree with Mr T.

 

We've only have maybe 40 at the most but so so much smoother and easier that the awful KS3 ones that were doing the rounds.

 

We have a lot of trouble with ECDL too.

[TechMonkey]

Add to that I think we have had 60ish but normally 30. Only problem we had was with Flash going a bit wrong which was a DLL registry problem. Wish there was a way to delegate control of the tests to someone else but apart from that it just runs.

[Guest Guest]

Given the choice between the edexcel tests and the RM QCA tests I would take the edexcel ones everytime. I have had no end of hassle with the RM tests.

 

Oh i bl00dy agree!!!

 

Dont get me wrong, the exambase software is the best ive ever seen education wise. But the way we had to find out about a known flaw in the system was unacceptable. They knew it was a problem, we told them the volume (to several people) yet they still didnt mention it.

[Sylv3r]

We will be having 12 students take these tests on the 15th & 16th May, this is the first time we have run the tests.

 

We used to run 65 kids on the KS3 ICT Pilot and had no problems with that.

[mrforgetful]

I think running the KS3 ICT Pilot wasn't so bad, it was the setting up and installation that was a pain as well.

[Quackers]

I have no problems with the Exambase software. Never had it fail, install was very easy, infact its the best exam software i have used to date. It just works.

[complete_phreak]

We're having issue with their sh!tty support. Constanly enguaged don't answer email even though i get delivery receipts. Their instuctions are wrong (miss out "verify stage" for demo test.)

 

The instuctions say we're supposed to get a username and password for the "administrator" program when we request a demo test (manually done by them). ARGH i though QCA was rubbish.

 

At least this is simple to underastand and doesnt take weeks to get you're head around just. Is exact opposite to RM QCA in that way.

 

Were one of the lucky schools who have decided to keep running the QCA tests this year!!!

[Sylv3r]

We're having issue with their sh!tty support. Constanly enguaged don't answer email even though i get delivery receipts. Their instuctions are wrong (miss out "verify stage" for demo test.)

 

The instuctions say we're supposed to get a username and password for the "administrator" program when we request a demo test (manually done by them). ARGH i though QCA was rubbish.

 

At least this is simple to underastand and doesnt take weeks to get you're head around just. Is exact opposite to RM QCA in that way.

 

Were one of the lucky schools who have decided to keep running the QCA tests this year!!!

 

I've been trying since last thursday to ring them to request a DEMO test, up to now no luck and I keep getting the engaged tone also.

[Tilda]

We have only run these with small numbers of students and have not had many problems until today.

I launch the exambase server - icon put on the systray, but when I move the cursor over the icon, the icon disappears. I can't therefore download exams, candidates or schedule exams. So far the support has not been able to help. I have rebooted the server that the software is installed on. I can't see any messages in the logs that would cause this. Any one any ideas, other than reinstalling.

[kingswood]

We have only run these with small numbers of students and have not had many problems until today.

I launch the exambase server - icon put on the systray, but when I move the cursor over the icon, the icon disappears. I can't therefore download exams, candidates or schedule exams. So far the support has not been able to help. I have rebooted the server that the software is installed on. I can't see any messages in the logs that would cause this. Any one any ideas, other than reinstalling.

 

The only issue I have found is that hitting "print" to get the codes candidates need to log on with produces...nothing! Anyway, that aside, I think these are far better than KS3 tests (which I am still running this year). But the jury is out. I have 80 students on Friday taking the ALAN tests- so time will tell

[Quackers]

We have only run these with small numbers of students and have not had many problems until today.

I launch the exambase server - icon put on the systray, but when I move the cursor over the icon, the icon disappears. I can't therefore download exams, candidates or schedule exams. So far the support has not been able to help. I have rebooted the server that the software is installed on. I can't see any messages in the logs that would cause this. Any one any ideas, other than reinstalling.

 

The only issue I have found is that hitting "print" to get the codes candidates need to log on with produces...nothing! Anyway, that aside, I think these are far better than KS3 tests (which I am still running this year). But the jury is out. I have 80 students on Friday taking the ALAN tests- so time will tell

 

Download the Print Utility, then it will work.

[plexer]

I found the printing utility last week and meant to post about it for anyone that hadn't found it.

 

The main server program doesn't print to network printers but the standalone utility does and this prints out your candidate information slips, 2 to an A4 page.

 

Ben

[Tilda]

I've solved this now with the help of BTL. Only needed to delete a couple of XML files and everything now works.

I must say that I have never had a problem getting through to the support.

The set up was very straight forward and so far we are very happy with the exams certainly a huge improvement on the ICT KS3 tests.

[meirionw]

You dont run the software on a machine running IIS

[mortstar]

ALAN is so much smoother than QCA ICT KS3 software.

 

Thanks for the info about Print utility - makes the software complete - ExamBase ftw!