MeritTrac Blog

MeritTrac Features as a Microsoft Azure Case Study

2012-02-24T09:48:00.001+05:30

Microsoft Azure Case Study - MeritTrac's innovative digital solution for education at

http://tinyurl.com/7x92czc

An Interview with Outsourcing Magazine of Malaysia

2012-02-24T09:47:00.002+05:30

An interview with Mohan Kannegal by "The Outsourcing" magazine of Malaysia talking about assessments, skills, education, outsourcing and MeritTrac.

Follow this link http://www.the-outsourcing.com/issue27/#/30/

MeritTrac focussing on PSU Tests - Hindu Business Line article

2011-09-26T09:41:00.001+05:30

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/article2470746.ece

Today is MeritTrac's Birthday !

2011-08-04T15:26:00.001+05:30

Happy Birthday to MeritTrac ! Founded August 4th 2000. Happy Birthday also to our CEO S Murlidhar.

MeritTrac CEO S Murlidhar on Digital Evaluation

2011-07-14T16:19:00.001+05:30

http://www.dnaindia.com/bangalore/report_schools-and-colleges-time-to-go-digital_1561059

MeritTrac CEO Murlidhar says "Capture the excitement in India"

2011-06-19T20:17:00.001+05:30

http://www.dnaindia.com/money/conversation-corner_capture-the-excitement-in-india_1556739

Govt May Digitize Class XII Answer Papers - we have been saying this for a while now!

2011-06-15T16:07:00.000+05:30

http://www.livemint.com/2011/06/12225453/Government-may-digitize-class.html?h=A1

AuthenTrac used in JIPMER UG Exam 2011

2011-06-06T10:34:00.000+05:30

http://ibnlive.in.com/generalnewsfeed/news/more-than-28000-candidates-take-jipmer-entrance-test/715126.html

Madan Padaki Acceptance Speech on winning Young EDGE 2011 Award

2011-03-21T19:52:00.000+05:30

July 5th, 2000

“ Woke up to a bright sunny morning – which is quite unusual in this season. Quite disoriented - the fact that I have quit my "job" yesterday and started-off on my own to do something in testing, is yet to sink in. "Unemployed" is the word that keeps buzzing in my head - even though I know that I am stepping into a new life where I am creating my "own employment". This sounds both exciting & scary at the same time…

I get ready and lock myself up in my bedroom - a makeshift office with my old battered computer. I call up Murli & Mohan (my would-be co-founders) trying to figure out what I should be doing - now that I am full-time into this. The things on the agenda are - to pick a name for this venture, put a full fledged business plan in place, run after some prospects trying to generate some business and also try to raise some money to get the venture going. Seems like quite a lot of things to do …

Lunch at home (Ah! the small pleasures of being on your own…) and the bed looks pretty inviting for an afternoon siesta. I fight off this urge and get to work on the business plan. I call up some contacts at Wipro & IBM and bingo! - I have got my first meeting with the Head-Recruitment of IBM!

Not a bad first day - managed to get some semblance of a start-up…I hit the sack with a prayer on my lips…God: help us !”

And as I stand here, I can feel the presence of “God” – actually many gods who have helped chalk MeritTrac’s and my path over the last 10 years..the memories of the last 10 years, the triumphs and the tribulations, the ups & downs and the roller coaster ride – of which this moment really ranks amongst the pinnacle.. the last 10 years where we have crossed over 12 million assessments, created innovative products, established newer models of assessments/learning, succeeded in a few initiatives, failed in many others..found many believers, made wonderful friends and got inspired by lovely people!

So first of all, I would like to thank the EDGE forum and the jury for having bestowed this singular honor on me and MeritTrac – I accept this award on behalf of all the 300 MeritTrac’ers and thousands of other supporters who have cheered for us all thru the last 10 years..

As I stand here reflecting on the last 10 years, my gratitude and thanks goes out..

..this great country - that I was born here which is so full of energy, passion, opportunities and possibilities..

..to my parents, my wife Roopa and my entire family who have stood by me like a rock right thru the journey, without whose sacrifices, I wouldn’t have experienced this moment

..to my partners – Murlidhar and Mohan Kannegal without whom I would not have been here today – to my mind, this is a Young EDGEs award and not the Young EDGE award – and this is really for the three of us

…to each and every MeritTrac’er – we have 1077 full-time MeritTrac’ers who have worked with us over the last 10 years – it is truly their passion that has powered us

…to my Board of Directors right from the beginning – be it Mr. Ranganath – the agriculturist who funded us initially, to HSBC Private Equity to Manipal Education who have always egged us on to reach out to greater heights

…to our customers, advisory panel members and every well-wisher/supporter who have been one of core reasons for our existence..and the list can go on & on..these are the many “Gods” that in my mind!

This award is not just a recognition of the journey that we had over the last 10 years, but a reminder that we have to continuously breach our own limitations over the next many decades…this definitely places an onerous responsibility on me – which I am really looking forward to grab and prove myself to be worthy of this award going forward as well.

There’s a wonderful song that has really touched me – and continues to inspire me – “Imagine” by John Lennon: with due apologies, I will re-phrase this as:

Imagine no word like employability

Everyone gets the career they desire

No pressures from parents or from peers

And the industry is happy…

Imagine no exams

No more rote lessons

Kids having fun learning

And continuously improving..

Imagine no illiterates

We have a way to identify everybody’s potential

And build on it, harnessing it for the nation

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will be as one !

Today, I am pledging my endeavors over the next many decades into converting this imagination to a reality..

In a different way, Guru Rabindranath Tagore summed up this imagination in this wonderful poem which is the cornerstone of my beliefs..

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action..

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Jai Hind!

Emarking agreement - MeritTrac and RM Education, UK

2011-03-14T15:24:00.000+05:30

http://rmeducationblogs.com/news/rm-education-and-merittrac-sign-e-marking-licensing-agreement-in-india/

MeritTrac/CEO wins Young EDGE Award 2011

2011-03-14T08:57:00.001+05:30

We are delighted - Madan Padaki, MeritTrac CEO was awarded the Youung Edge Award 2011 by Smt.Purandeshwari and Prof. Rajashekaran Pillai during the EDGE 2011 conference at Delhi on March 10th 2011.

Young EDGE Award was constituted with the notion of recognizing emerging young leaders from India in education who have made significant impact in the higher education sector. Past recipients are Dr. Vidya Yeravdekar (Principal Director, Symbiosis Society) and Mr. Achyuta Samanta (Founder KIIT University and Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences).

AuthenTrac From MeritTrac - biometric check for exam impostors - Indian Express Article

2011-02-17T20:15:00.000+05:30

AuthenTrac From MeritTrac - biometric check for exam impostors

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Medical-entrance-exam-goes-biometric-to-stop-imposters/749389

MeritTrac Launches CertiTrac - Indian Express

2011-01-24T19:07:00.001+05:30

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/now-get-your-digital-pass-certificates-at-click-of-a-mouse/740440/0

MeritTrac Launches CertiTrac !

2011-01-24T14:09:00.000+05:30

http://www.dnaindia.com/academy/report_e-convocation-certificates-to-end-students-woes_1498454

MeritTrac Launches CertiTrac

2011-01-24T11:35:00.000+05:30

Read all about it at ... http://www.businesswireindia.com/PressRelease.asp?b2mid=25504

• 3 million students graduate from Indian higher education system every year and a Degree Certificate is their ultimate document for entering the job market or pursuing further studies

• A nation-wide survey of Graduates of the 2007 - 2010 batch conducted by MeritTrac reveals that around 81% of them faced an inordinate delay in getting the degree certificate and 86% of them had to pursue this repeatedly with their universities

• 92% of students felt that that usage of technology will improve the system and it is such a system that MeritTrac has created to distribute digital Degree Certificates in a secure, quick and student friendly manner

Over 3 million students graduate every year from our higher education system, ready to either plunge into the job market or pursue further studies. While applying for further studies or for their dream jobs, a graduate requires his degree certificate to manifest completion of required minimum qualification. Every year many of these just graduated candidates miss excellent opportunities due to inordinate delays in getting their degree certificate. At times making several rounds to their Institution or University, paying “extra” money finally gets them their well deserved due which has been earned by them.

On the other hand, large Universities in India manage a huge pool graduating students every year and it is not easy to distribute the final Convocation Degree certificate since they are not collected by all students on a particular day. On top of it, there are rampant practices of fake degree certificates which hit the headlines every year. As a result, Universities struggle to maintain the sanctity of their processes amidst the administrative pressures that they face.

A research by MeritTrac research team on 200 graduates passed out between 2007 to 2010 throws some interesting facts about this process of getting the degree convocation certificate.

• More than 81% of the students who have received their degree certificate said that there was a delay in getting their certificate, with 60% of them facing a delay of over 6 months

• About 86% respondents said that they had to do a lot of running around to get their degree certificate

• Around 23% of the students indicated that they faced problems with incorrect information (wrong spelling of names, etc.) in the final certificate that they got

• A whopping 92% respondent expressed their displeasure with the system thought that usage of technology like online application to be implemented by the Universities.

It is in this context that MeritTrac is bringing out another innovation from its stable - CertiTrac.

CertiTrac is India’s first technology-led solution for secure distribution of digital Convocation Certificates. It is a first-of-its-kind service that enables University Graduates to access their Certificate online, without having to personally visit either the Institution or the University.

Based on their University Registration number and a combination of their personal details, students have the option to pay the Convocation fees either online or by way of Demand Draft. The online payment of the certificate fees can be made either by Credit Card or Debit Card or through Net-Banking. Once the payment is successful, and the details are authorized by University officials, the e-Convocation Certificate will get generated in ‘preview mode’ for the students. They will then be able to preview the certificate and verify that the certificate is correct in all respects. Subsequently, post confirmation, the final e-Convocation Certificate is generated and available for the student to print or download. Immediately, a request is generated to print and dispatch the Original Degree Certificate. At every stage of the process, the candidate is kept informed of the status of his application via emails and SMSes. ...

Read the full report at http://www.businesswireindia.com/PressRelease.asp?b2mid=25504

Online Exams Gaining Traction - Mint Article

2011-01-19T19:43:00.002+05:30

http://www.livemint.com/2011/01/18223700/Online-tests-gain-traction-in.html

MeritTrac Launches Online Certification Portal (Times of India)

2011-01-13T17:14:00.000+05:30

MeritTrac launches Online Certificate Verification Portal

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bangalore/Now-download-your-degree-certificate/articleshow/7272017.cms

MeritTrac Launches Online Certificate Verification Portal!

2011-01-13T17:12:00.001+05:30

MeritTrac launches Online Certificate Verification Portal ...

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/128778/jump-queue-get-bangalore-university.html

MBAUniverse Reports on the The CAT Press Conference

2010-12-01T13:31:00.000+05:30

Read the story at
http://www.mbauniverse.com/directors-digest/volume_1_issue_2/coverstory.php

Pasted below in case link has challenges

How IIMs & Prometric led the CAT to run smoothly

By: MBAUniverse.com | 25th Nov 2010

This in-depth analysis by MBAUniverse.com Educators Digest delves into the actual, behind-the-scenes story that helped IIMs & Prometric make CAT 2010 a great success.

No surprises were anticipated when the Indian Institutes of Management and Prometric, held a Press Meet to declare the successful completion of the Common Admission Test (CAT) 2010 with its two test delivery partners, MeritTrac and Everonn. Rather, it presented an opportunity to understand directly, the real, untold story, behind the scenes of CAT 2010.

The success of CAT 2010, with its 20-day test marathon that was conducted over 246 labs, in 78 locations and using 9,000 computers, was confirmed by Mr. Soumitra Roy, Managing Director, Prometric India.

Mr. Soumitra Roy stated, “We are happy that this year’s administration met or even exceeded global standards. To test so many candidates, across such diverse geography and physical environment, within a set period is something that we are proud of. What is most satisfying is overcoming infrastructural challenges and delivering on our commitment of smooth and fair testing for all eligible candidates. All registered candidates who showed up with proper documentation and on time, have successfully completed their tests. This wouldn’t have been possible without consistent support from the IIMs and delivery partners.”

Mr. Ramesh Nava, Vice President & GM, Asia Pacific, Japan & Africa, Prometric, stated, “We are in the process of collecting not just statistical data but all types of data across forums, blogs and so on so that we can conduct data forensics in every step of the process and find places to optimize.”

CAT 2010 Convener Prof. Himanshu Rai stated, “We still have got a long way to go. We’ve got to get to a state when CAT is available throughout the year.” He added, “What was promised and delivered by Prometric is either equal or exceeds global standards in terms of the parameters that were set. Mostly, it has exceeded global standards.”

Areas of improvement were briefly stated by Prof. Himanshu Rai, “We want to introduce online vouchers, reduce the 90 min waiting period and address these areas without compromising on quality. We will do an analysis proactively by looking at what people are talking about and see how we can implement better.”

On analysis, it is clear that several factors make CAT 2010 stand out and these got thrown in as essential components that went into the successful making of CAT 2010:

Meticulous Planning
Planning by Prometric started and continued at a dynamic pace, paving the way for adoption of state of the art technologies such as biometric testing, finger prints etc. During the test development phase, Prometric worked closely with IIMs professors along with specially trained subject matter experts from other top B-schools of India.

Change in partners
Prometric had partnered with NIIT for CAT 2009, but for CAT 2010, Prometric partnered with two test delivery partners - MeritTrac and Everonn, who are experienced players in the testing industry. In partnership with MeritTrac and Everonn, Prometric evaluated and selected 78 test centers based on good technical and physical infrastructure. In addition to tightening the processes for site readiness and training, Prometric implemented a longer test site preparation period. By site, the reference is to centers where CAT exams were scheduled to take place.

Test Developing and Revamping
With due consideration of the numerous difficulties faced by the CAT takers last year, Prometric revamped and improved their site and the testing process accordingly. Firstly, the registration interface was developed.

As confirmed by Mr. Soumitra Roy, Managing Director, Prometric India on 25th November 2010, “We developed questions with IIM professors and subject matter experts and these were put into a question bank. The questions were finally reviewed again by IIM professors and we came up with a sizeable question bank.”

He emphasized on the revamping that they did by citing specific examples. They had developed a brand new site for CAT 2010 candidates and ensured a seamless registration form with a focus that “we have to take care of the candidate.” He pinpointed the videos that were provided on the site to educate students on what to expect on the testing day. About results, he stated that January 12, 2011 would be the date on which the results would be announced.

CAT 2010 Convener Prof. Himanshu Rai stated that every effort was made to ensure that students faced no disadvantages in terms of question papers that had similar difficulty levels. He stated, “Equating is done through psychometric method. We make sure that our question papers had similar difficulty levels across sections. We ensure that no student faced disadvantages in this regard.”

Emphasis on data security
CAT 2009 had suffered technical glitches that occurred due to virus attacks. Based on this, Prometric took more caution in choosing the test sites and ensuring the security. Prometric also ensured that the test sites were absolutely sanitized and insulated.

Communication and Engagements
This year, Prometric and IIMs engaged with the media to answer queries and create awareness so that all stakeholders are kept well aware of all the developments. The IIMs were cooperative with the candidates. The IIMs extended the dates for Voucher Sale and registration as a response to the requests made by candidates who could not buy the CAT voucher or register within the given time period. The CAT 2010 voucher sale was supposed to end on September 28 and the registration was till September 31. These were extended by a week each.

To those who wanted to know “What Next?,” there were answers that had ‘futuristic’ possibilities but seemed to be already underway in terms of processes.

CAT 2010 Convener Prof. Himanshu Rai stated, “We want to take CAT across frontiers – offshore to make it viable and in sync with global practices. The road ahead is steep but we have the will to do what it takes.”

On 25th November, 2010, Dr. Devi Singh, Director, IIM-Lucknow Noida campus, stated, “I am happy that it is over and delighted at the way it has been conducted. We have learned our lessons from the previous year and implemented what we learned. Prometric demonstrated the finest testing experience. We want to create CAT as an independent organization that can be self sustaining and be taken care of on its own. There is some movement in this direction but nothing is ready to be announced yet but it will happen very soon.”

MeritTrac Launches AuthenTrac !!

2010-10-06T11:46:00.000+05:30

India’s first biometric authentication service for examinations, to make exam processes free from impersonations

• Several incidents of exam impersonations have been highlighted by the media in the recent past With the demand-supply dynamics that we have, it is a well established fact that a person’s life is made by getting into the right courses (read: Engineering, MBA, Medical) in the right colleges, getting a first-class in the degree or landing that plum Government job.

• The pressure to break the system is intense and the weakest link is the current process of authenticating a candidate for an exam. A controlled experiment that MeritTrac Research carried out on effectiveness of identifying forged signatures just proved this: just over 60% of experienced invigilators could identify less than 50% of forged signatures

• With its vast experience of having delivered over 1 crore exams, MeritTrac now has a answer to this menace – AuthenTrac, India’s first candidate authentication service, a patent-pending solution using a biometric authentication device.

Bangalore October 5th, 2010: 10 million professional entrance exams, 130 million semester exams and 50 million Government/PSU recruitment exams: these are the number of exams that candidates appear for, in our country. Almost all of these exams are conducted in a traditional paper-pencil mode and the exam process relies solely on the signature of the candidate as a proof of identity, post facto. With the intense competition to get the right seat, the appropriate marks and the plum Government post, this process of authentication remains by far the weakest link of the paper-pencil exam process, providing an opportunity for thousands of impersonations to happen routinely. In the last year alone, a quick search on news articles of impersonation has thrown up over 125 cases that have been highlighted by the national media alone.

The current process of authentication in the traditional paper-pencil mode today is to match the facial features of the candidate with the photograph on the hall (admission) ticket, and to match the signature of the candidate that is on the hall-ticket with the one that the candidate signs on the attendance sheet. While there are several drawbacks of the photograph verification (old photos, smudged prints, etc.), this photo verification process by the invigilator is not recorded anywhere at all and hence the signature becomes the sole artifact of authentication once the examination is conducted.

MeritTrac Research team conducted an interesting experiment recently on the effectiveness of identifying forged signatures by experienced invigilators – 60% of the invigilators could identify only 50% of the forged signatures and only 4% were able to accurately identify 95%+ of the forged signatures. This experiment presents a very bleak picture of the current authentication process – that a very large of impersonations in exams is really possible and that we lack an auditable process to identify such impersonations effectively!

It is this critical issue that MeritTrac is solving by introducing the newest innovation from its stable. With over 1 crore candidates tested till date and having thoroughly understood the intricacies of the system, the Innovation team at MeritTrac set about working on this problem almost 12 months ago. The idea was to use technology in such a manner that it does not disrupt the current process of exams, but comprehensively solves the issue of authentication. Thus was born this service offering christened AuthenTrac.

AuthenTrac is a comprehensive service offering that ensures authenticity of candidates through a combination of biometric fingerprint imprint and a digital photograph that is captured at the time of the examination. To enable this, MeritTrac has created a handheld device that features an optical scanner of 500 dpi (fingerprint reader), camera, keypad, display screen and optionally a bar code or smart-card reader, all housed within a single unit. It is able to connect to the internet directly and transfer data to and from an application server using TCPIP/FTP.

MeritTrac has also created a software application that can synchronize scheduled candidates data to the device and map it with the data collected at the time of the examination.

The idea is to offer the entire process of authentication as a service – where MeritTrac supervisors will deploy adequate number of handheld devices at the exam centers and capture this data. This data can be subsequently used to authenticate the candidate at the time of counseling for seats, interviews or in subsequent exam processes. The service also offers the feature of instantaneous capture of attendance with a time stamp and generates reports for each candidate verified or rejected with a complete audit trail for any RTI queries.

Unveiling the solution, Dr. R. Natarajan, Former Chairman, AICTE commented: “It will be a very useful scalable, comprehensive solution that will tackle this problem effectively. This will be a very useful service to educational institutions and examination authorities alike in ensuring fair examination processes, thereby furthering the cause of fairness, transparency and meritocracy”.

Mr. Madan Padaki, Co-founder & CEO, MeritTrac said, “We are very excited about this innovation, as it addresses a very core issue that has vexed the examination systems so far. I am also delighted with the overwhelming response that we have got … we have already signed up our first large PSU client for this service. We are planning significant investments in our research & innovation efforts – and we expect to roll out several other technology interventions that address the examination process.”

MeritTrac has also filed for a patent for this entire solution, as it is a unique offering that combines the performance reliability of biometric authentication with the convenience of the traditional hall ticket verification method, at an affordable cost

Madan Padaki Interview in New Indian Express 21st Sept

2010-09-23T13:40:00.000+05:30

The MeritTrac Anthem !!

2010-09-05T11:54:00.000+05:30

We made an anthem to celebrate 10 years of MeritTrac ...

Play it at - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-YMHK_obDo

The 10 Million Exams Team (EmpID 1000 - 1227)

2010-08-14T15:23:00.000+05:30

MT1000-Raman .K MT1001-Manjunath G C MT1002-Deepti Madhavan MT1003-Anil Upadhya P MT1004-Divya Subramanian MT1005-Neeraj Kumar Singh MT1006-Arun Kumar S MT1007-Mahi Antony Joseph .S MT1008-Mythri G. Chandan MT1009-Sanjana Chougule MT1010-Shefali Hegde MT1011-Supriya S MT1012-Vineet Jose MT1013-Anup Shenoy R MT1014-Yogesh Pant MT1015-Naveen R MT1016-Sonali Siddhartha Sahani MT1017-Naresh Gunayathi MT1018-Pavan Kumar J Raheja MT1019-Kiran L MT1020-Krishna Raju S MT1021-Anjali U.S MT1022-Feroz Jabeen MT1023-Sivanandan S MT1024-Tharunya Jagadish MT1025-Aparna. U MT1026-Rachna Neerudu MT1027-Ranbir Mahapatra MT1028-Saji Samuel MT1029-Bhavna Bhira MT1030-Hema Latha N MT1031-Shruti Jain MT1032-Siddhartha Suhas Sahani MT1033-Monika Srivastava MT1034-Rachel Mathew MT1035-Sandeep Kumar K MT1036-Sindhu Vijayanand MT1037-Subrato Dey MT1038-Nishath Sultana MT1039-Hima Bindu Garrepalli MT1040-Mathew James MT1041-Madhusmita Patra MT1042-Sandeep Gurushankar MT1043-Sanjeev Ranjan MT1044-Anjana Jayanthan MT1045-Chandrani Makar MT1046-Sahana Prabhakar MT1047-Shweta B Mane MT1048-Spoorthi Seethamma. M.M MT1049-Ifraz Pasha MT1050-Gaurav Gill MT1051-Mohammed Taha Manna MT1052-Mugdha Bhattacharya MT1053-Azeem Asgher MT1054-Jasleen Johar MT1055-Anand Mishra MT1056-Aparna Purwar MT1057-Chunchu Sekhar MT1058-Raouf U.K MT1059-Praveen A MT1060-Anil Kumar Boga MT1061-Nitesh G.M MT1062-Rajendra M.E MT1063-Saumya MT1064-Chandan Srikantan MT1065-M.D Hussainullah Baig MT1066-Karen Yogeetha Ronald MT1067-Arun Kumar V MT1068-Pankaj Kesharwani MT1069-Rajan Kumar MT1070-P Sahana Prabhakar MT1071-Nagaraj P N MT1072-Preeti Joshi MT1073-Shruthi G Bhandary MT1074-Shruthi J.P MT1075-Abishek Chandrashekar MT1076-Kalpana Vaidyanathan MT1077-Naveen G MT1078-Sangeetha Balan MT1079-Sunitha Rajakumari M. MT1080-Seshu Chivukula MT1081-Amrita Akshay MT1082-Shiveta Koul MT1083-Ajay Kumar MT1084-Alphy Mary MT1085-Caroline Vijaya Phillips MT1086-Nirana Ravi MT1087-Rickson Sampath MT1088-Shalini Lakshman MT1089-Shiva M MT1090-Vinutha C.M MT1091-Ashwini T.D MT1092-Karthikeyan Ravi MT1093-Mansi V.Shah MT1094-Archita Kadambi MT1095-Niru Rai MT1096-Carol Patrao MT1097-Chaitra T MT1098-Indumathi.K MT1099-Prerna Mahajan MT1100-Rajeev Dewan MT1101-Rooban P MT1102-Rosevin Sushma Devina Miranda MT1103-Sreedhar Reddy MT1104-Sujatha Kiran MT1105-Swetha Kakade MT1106-Thejaswini Aravind MT1107-Usha Subramani MT1108-Anil Kumar M MT1109-Joseph Rodrigues MT1110-Somnath.S MT1111-Kishor Pinninti MT1112-Prashanth Ananthraman MT1113-Pooja Sharma MT1114-Divya P U MT1115-Mahalakshmi Srinivasan MT1116-Mahasweta Pandit MT1117-Vinay B.N MT1118-Shwethambari V.S MT1119-Neelam Chettri MT1120-Sai Lakshmi Reddy K S MT1121-Prema MT1122-Jyothi Keshavan MT1123-Jamuna. M MT1124-Pragathi Prakash MT1125-Sachet Alva MT1126-Pushpalatha.K MT1127-Vinay Manohar.T.K MT1128-Rakhi Mor MT1129-Pallavi Rajan MT1130-Sanjeev Singh MT1131-Subodh Bidawatka MT1132-Nasimul Shaikh MT1133-Partha Pratim Sharma MT1134-Sumit Rastogi MT1135-Ashish Babu MT1136-Amit Kumar Singh MT1137-Abhilasha Singh MT1138-Lisha Mathew MT1139-Aftab Mobin Khan MT1140-Shoheb Bhatkar MT1141-Asha L MT1142-Teena Thankappan MT1143-Sandeepa MT1144-Shravya Shetty K.N MT1145-Lavanya Laxmi Valluri MT1146-Manivannan.T MT1147-Fareeda Begum K MT1148-Soumya Achrekar MT1149-Senthil Kumar MT1150-Shoehb Iqbal Kate MT1151-Palakoti Ravi Shanker MT1152-Suman S Pattar MT1153-Anup Abraham Thomas MT1154-Vikas Sullere MT1155-Shashi Mauli Tripathi MT1156-Pooja Verma MT1157-Prajakta.A Nanarkar MT1158-Chandan Kumar Ojha MT1159-Harith Chambravalli MT1160-Alekhya Hanumanthu MT1161-Ashish Babu MT1162-Sharada Rao MT1163-Abdul Guthoos MT1164-Sital M Arora MT1165-Sunaina P A MT1166-G Ganesh Kiran MT1167-Debraj MT1168-Vinay Kumar.P MT1169-Deepak.B.P MT1170-Geetha Madhuri MT1171-B.R. Elizabeth MT1172-Pooja Joshi MT1173-Shruti Talapatra MT1174-Sony.D MT1175-Maria Saritha MT1176-Akaash Kumar Bhat MT1177-Bhooma Varadharajan MT1178-Preety Raheja MT1179-Harshita Rathore MT1180-Rajneesh Malik MT1181-Prashant Vishwa MT1182-Joyeeta Sarkar MT1183-Nikhil Rana MT1184-Lakhwinder S Lamba MT1185-Mahendra Kumar.M MT1186-Sharmistha Ghosh MT1187-Arun Rawat MT1188-Praveen Kumar Khare MT1189-Raghavendra M MT1190-Sneha Wadhwani MT1191-Tejas Vijay Karanje MT1192-Amrita Chauhan MT1193-Meghana Pradhan MT1194-Jitender Dugar MT1195-Charan Raju.G MT1196-Santosh M.B MT1197-Ratna Srivastava MT1198-Wilma D'Souza MT1199-Munira Mithani

MT1200-Sunil Edward MT1201-Swetha Sen Choudhury MT1202-Ajay Kumar Mulaka MT1203-D. Namrata Reddy MT1204-Arup Bhowmik MT1205-Sounok Kanta Ghosh MT1206-Ranjit Rajan MT1207-Vijayamala Nalwad MT1208-Rohit Sharma MT1209-G.Mithun MT1210-Madesha.P MT1211-Zubin Timothy Sethna MT1212-Gaurav Mehta MT1213-Kosuri Vijayetha MT1214-B.Ramesh MT1215-Thejas.V.G MT1216-Jayawardhan Manish.V.J MT1217-Gaurav Sharma MT1218-Pankaj Nehete MT1219-Roshan Patil MT1220-Vijayshree. G.R MT1221-Sunil Kumar Bobba MT1222-Mk Nanjunda Prasad MT1223-Tharun Kumar.R MT1224-Harini Chennamaneni MT1225-Neetu Singh MT1226-Niharika Bora MT1227-Rolson D'Souza

The 10 Million Exams Team (EmpID 750-999)

2010-08-14T15:21:00.002+05:30

MT750-Suhasini Thota MT751-Thyagarajan B MT752-Abhilash S R MT753-Arpit Pradeep Wadke MT754-Divya V MT755-M. Vijayalakshmi MT756-Sharon Abraham MT757-Sanjeev Ranjan MT758-Geeta G. MT759-Nilanjan Sinha MT760-Sanjana Elizabeth Thomas MT761-Shruti Prasad MT762-Sneha Sridhar MT763-Rashmi Nair MT764-Richa Mehta MT765-Vivien Felicia Cochrane MT766-Charu Chandra MT767-Karthigeyan S MT768-Deepa Bansal MT769-Jenifer Macwan MT770-Prabhat Poddar MT771-Radhika Sinha MT772-Shiju T MT773-Hema Nagpal MT774-Lavanya M Rao MT775-Manan Choksi MT776-Akshay B. Shetty MT777-Archina Raina MT778-Ashish Rajvanshi MT779-Azad Singh MT780-B Veena MT781-Cecil Joseph MT782-Deepak Malhotra MT783-Divya Venkateswaran MT784-Hadavle Dilip Prabhakar MT785-Iranipur Jennifer Cyrus MT786-Jagdish Sahu MT787-Jaspal Singh Bedi MT788-Kapil Mehta MT789-Kavitha Puttaraju MT790-Krishnakumar B S MT791-Maya Harshad Patankar MT792-Muhammed Hussam Adeni MT793-Nauka Shah MT794-Nita Raghuwanshi MT795-Pratik U. Sampat MT796-Rajesh Palayil MT797-Rittu Nanda MT798-S.Chandraganesh MT799-Sachin Chowta MT800-Sanish T K MT801-Sonali Paresh Bhave MT802-Sonali Sil MT803-Sreevathsan V MT804-Sri Ram Raghuraman MT805-Subhodeep Ghosh MT806-Suneetha MT807-Archana B Nair MT808-Biby Thomas MT809-Binay Kumar Singh MT810-Harsha S MT811-Javed Basheer MT812-Md. Sayeddullah MT813-Neil D'Souza MT814-Pooja Bhat MT815-Prashanth K.M MT816-Praveen Cavale MT817-Prem Kumar K.M MT818-Salini P MT819-Sayeeda Nazneen MT820-Sowmya R MT821-Sujay Kumar B.S MT822-T. Mridula Priyadarshini MT823-Vandana Prasad MT824-Vigil Das R MT825-Vinita Punia MT826-Vinitha Nancy S. MT827-Girish D MT828-Sunitha Unni MT829-Namitha D Naidu MT830-Vikas Sahadeo Gaikwad MT831-Ashwin Achal MT832-Dara Vikram MT833-Sagar M V MT834-Sheetal Adavani S MT835-Shilpi Walia MT836-Sunil Kumar B MT837-Varsha Garg MT838-Rakesh E M MT839-Ayan Mahapatra MT840-Ankur Tailang MT841-Kruthika Jayatheertha MT842-Neeti Singh MT843-Madhavi Chari MT844-Arpana S Jain MT845-Anupama Vicky Raj MT846-Raju C.H MT847-Sangeetha Lawrence MT848-Woody Vijayeendra MT849-Pavan Sriram MT850-Rajesh Mohan Rai MT851-Kakarlapudi Neeraja MT852-Priyadarshini M MT853-Vinay Kumar Hc MT854-Ninad Kamat MT855-Mohammed Anwer Moinuddin MT856-Zeeshan Ahmad MT857-Ayan Kar MT858-Shovon Chakraborty MT859-Bharath Laxmipati MT860-Rajani Vishwanath MT861-Amudha Joseph MT862-Ajith Raju MT863-Geetha Priya R MT864-Gaurav Gaur MT865-Anshul Kumar MT866-Rashmi S MT867-Rashmi Boyi MT868-Kamal Stephen MT869-Subi Abraham MT870-Anju Kumari MT871-J.Sriharsha MT872-Sweta Anantharaman MT873-Rajendra B L MT874-Manisha Kapur MT875-Roshan Kushalappa MT876-Anushka George MT877-Anuradha V MT878-Amod Sanni G MT879-Caroline Vijaya Phillips MT880-Elizabeth Kunjumon MT881-Jaspreet Bali MT882-Krupavani R MT883-Mary Celvia Kavitha T MT884-Sahana Jain MT885-Shazia Shahid MT886-Sindhu Vijayanand G MT887-Swetha Shivanna MT888-Namita Katkar MT889-Divya Ratna Tadimeti MT890-Shilpa Thota MT891-Shyamantha R MT892-Rajnish Alexander P. MT893-Radha Ravula MT894-Shanthini Sivaraj MT895-Shobin Joseph MT896-Lokesh Karunakaran MT897-Shyam Krishna MT898-Jennifer Connally MT899-Srijana P. Rai MT900-Nyson Jose MT901-Parul Priyadarshan MT902-Srikanth Ganesan MT903-Sylvia Bennett MT904-Rahul Dhar MT905-Mahesh R.V. MT906-Nagabhushana Shetty P K MT907-Rajitha Kantha MT908-Rohini Chowdary MT909-S. Sherath Kumar MT910-Ramesh Talagampa MT911-Amrita Shetty MT912-Ramanjula Reddy MT913-Savita Suresh Ajgaonkar MT914-Hemanth Rao MT915-Mohan Kumar MT916-Usha G. Nandini MT917-S. Venkatesh Vinay MT918-Mangala.R. MT919-Balasubrahmanyam Vadlamani MT920-Kailash B Mohol MT921-Bhavika Dineshkumar Shah MT922-Farah Unwala MT923-Geeta Bhandakkar MT924-Pooja Jetley MT925-Poonam Goenka MT926-Yogini Sardesai MT927-Gautami R. Pore MT928-Imran Rashid MT929-Subramanya B.N. MT930-Marichelvam.G MT931-Mohd. Shoaib Dalkhania MT932-Nitin Prem MT933-Pankaj Joshi MT934-Priyanka Singh MT935-Shanti Mahadevan MT936-Yogeeta Bhatia MT937-Beena Kurup MT938-Sushma Devi MT939-Syed Waseem MT940-Rima Basu MT941-Tharun Kumar R MT942-Veena.R MT943-Ningthoujam Sapana MT944-Revathi Raghunath MT945-Vinayak Kachare MT946-Gowri Subramanya MT947-Palakoti Ravi Shanker MT948-Shalini Karigari MT949-Vijay Tiwari MT950-Iranna S.Koulagi MT951-Ghulam Md Hussain MT952-Swarajya Laxmi S MT953-Ayush Chandra MT954-Samata Rudrakshi MT955-Tsering Choedhen MT956-Rizwanudeen A MT957-Suchandrima Das MT958-Roshni MT959-Aruna G MT960-Pooja Arora MT961-Yogesh C. S. MT962-Manish Jain MT963-Nagarajan. K MT964-Bharath Kadam MT965-Leo Peter MT966-Neethu Shree N MT967-Sharon Fernandez M. MT968-Deepti Singh MT969-Nawid L Equbal MT970-Mrinalini Mogili MT971-Rashmi Kiran MT972-Neelima .B MT973-Sasirekha Chowdary Nuni MT974-Prasad H P MT975-Vishal Shori MT976-Ankush Laxman MT977-Shruti Mehan MT978-Sadaf Fatima MT979-Sharon Narang MT980-Vivek R. Fernandes MT981-Chetana Nagar MT982-Nalini Yadav N MT983-Kavitha Somashekar MT984-Satish Kumar G MT985-Naveen.M MT986-Josephine Kiran Raj MT987-Vivek Somashekar MT988-Anand Seshadri Komandur MT989-Gursharan Singh MT990-Daljeet Singh MT991-Jesu Nixon MT992-Shwetha A MT993-Venugopal Narayanan MT994-Ajay Venkatesh MT995-Antionette Saviona. Rodrigues MT996-Joanna Moraes MT997-Nidhi Lodha MT998-Padmasini Sarathy MT999-Reetu Singh

The 10 Million Exams Team (EmpID 500 - EmpID 749)

2010-08-14T15:20:00.000+05:30

MT500-Kuldeep Shah MT501-Rashmi Sreenandan MT502-Somdev Chaudhuri MT503-Vishal Kaslay MT504-Chandrasekar Neeli MT505-Lalitha M MT506-Abhilash Pawan Jagalapalli MT507-Akash Bali MT508-Namita Gupta MT509-Jaishankar Narayanan MT510-N Sarfaraz Hussain MT511-Umesh. S MT512-Jhansi Jagannadham Naidu MT513-R N Kranti Kiran MT514-Naresh Kumar Gontu MT515-Srinivas Rao Kulkarni MT516-Shobha K MT517-Nagendra Singh Bisht MT518-Rohan Das MT519-Linda Ann D'Cunha MT520-Mohammed Fraaz Ul Haq MT521-Rohit Bhatia MT522-Ganesh Vm MT523-Sabyasachi Mukherjee MT524-Shashi Kumar N MT525-Mrinalini Rajesh MT526-Arvind Kumar.T MT527-Thang Lian Khup.S MT528-Sabina Zacharias MT529-N Radhika MT530-Samlinson E MT531-Arun Kumar A MT532-Arun Samuel MT533-R Ganapathy Shiva Subramaniam MT534-D.Thiagu MT535-Shipra Bhardwaj MT536-Dipansh Mishra K MT537-Jayakanthan D MT538-S Rajaraman MT539-Anoop Mathew MT540-M Vani MT541-Bhagya.R MT542-Srikanth D S MT543-S. Sri Balaji MT544-Sandeep Subhash Joshi MT545-Jyoti Jain MT546-Madhusmita MT547-Durgam Pratyusha MT548-Vishaalini Vidya V MT549-Vasudha Chandramouli MT550-Megha.P MT551-Rishi Alapati MT552-Nikita Nichani MT553-Shilpa Tr MT554-Shweta Tripaty MT555-Palak.S.Patel MT556-Aji Augustine A MT557-Jaideep Nair MT558-Pritesh Bamania MT559-M Senthil Kumar MT560-Ravi Kumar.A.G MT561-Rajesh Singh MT562-Sudhir Singh MT563-Prashanth Gorijala MT564-Janhavi MT565-Y.Santhosh Kumar MT566-Rohit Agrawal MT567-Swetha.D MT568-Anwita Lal MT569-Baljeet Sachdev MT570-Shashidhar.S.D MT571-B.Shivani MT572-Praveena Kompella MT573-Suman Kumar MT574-Dristi Singh MT575-Shilpashree MT576-Afshaan Khan MT577-Joy Nair MT578-Keshava.R MT579-Mohan.R MT580-Moin Mirza MT581-Ezilda Fernandes MT582-Rishipreet M MT583-Vishant Dasharath Jadhav MT584-Amol.D.Shinde MT585-Vimala.V.M MT586-Pankaja Mahesh Gaonkar MT587-Sheetal.C.S MT588-Ganesh Prasad.G MT589-Siddhartha.N MT590-Azeem.M.Desai MT591-Shrikant Manake MT592-Sujay.J.Nair MT593-Firdouse Jan MT594-Michelle Nelson MT595-Gertcia Janet Christy MT596-Eswara Rao M P MT597-Shakeel Ahmed MT598-Shikha Chaudhry MT599-Deborah Melissa Martin MT600-Savio D'Souza MT601-Yunus Basha MT602-Bhavya George MT603-Mahesh Kumar.V MT604-Nijay Jaiprakash MT605-Vikas Deep Arora MT606-S.Abhilash MT607-Anand Jandhyala MT608-Shivakumar.N MT609-Suma Sunkada MT610-Kavitha.N MT611-Saybal Kumar Kar MT612-Abhishek Kr. Srivastava MT613-Jitendra Singh MT614-Swaminathan.S MT615-Syed Moinullah MT616-Milind Shastri MT617-Pooja Nair MT618-Manoj J Varma MT619-Smitha M.M MT620-Farah Humayun Khan Anwar MT621-Shilpa Purushothama MT622-Jyothi R MT623-Smitha Menon MT624-Varsha B Achar MT625-Anshul Khurana MT626-Kumaram Majumdar MT627-Nithesh Aloysius Fernandes MT628-Sadashiva.D.Ambiger MT629-Tifferet L G MT630-Abhay M C MT631-Amrita Choudhury MT632-Ayana Chatterjee MT633-Mayuresh A Saraf MT634-Mithun Aiyappa M MT635-Pradip Kr.Panday MT636-Shashir Shetty MT637-Shruti Ravi MT638-Sumanta Ghosh MT639-Sunil Naik MT640-Tushar Deshmukh MT641-Akshay Kumar MT642-Mandar Jog MT643-Jagadeesh S MT644-Kishan Lingaraj MT645-Shambhavi G MT646-Ashwini Gangadharan MT647-Lidia Eugenia Pinto MT648-Madhur Prabhakar MT649-Narendra Damodaran MT650-Pooja Siddannavar MT651-Rana Pratap K MT652-Sandeep Kulkarni MT653-Arindam Moulick MT654-Vinita Krishnan MT655-Anuradha M MT656-Ganesh D Balehosur MT657-Umesh Prakash Agashe MT658-Amit Kumar Singh MT659-Divyashree S MT660-Khushali Jain MT661-Mohammed Muiez Ahmed MT662-Tarvinder Kaur MT663-Antonia Mythili Poonam MT664-Fareeda Begum K MT665-Grusha Gurung MT666-Minal Makwana MT667-Devakar Jha MT668-Rashmi Dewan MT669-Sohail Kamal MT670-Imdad Shariff MT671-Johanna Rachel Francis MT672-Arun Rogers Benedict MT673-Mahantesh Nagathan MT674-Mallika T. MT675-Mohd Yakub Pasha MT676-Ravitha S MT677-Mohammed Mudassir Ahmed MT678-Mythri D MT679-Sanjay Waghela MT680-Tamanna Jadhwani MT681-Vipin Lalit MT682-Vishalakshi B Somanna MT683-Wasim Abdurahiman MT684-Deepak C K MT685-Biju Zachariah MT686-Rachin N R MT687-Kirthee P R MT688-Aravind V Nair MT689-Wasi Ur Rahman MT690-Archana Dinesh MT691-Harmeet Singh MT692-Rakhi Chaudhuri MT693-Ritika Jolly MT694-Manoj Kumar K MT695-Pavan Yashwanth MT696-Preeja N R MT697-Sriram Satish Pulaparty MT698-Kuldeep Nanaso Patil MT699-Loveena Kaushal MT700-Madesha P MT701-Rajat Gupta MT702-Soumya C MT703-Vijay Kiran Kasi MT704-Ashok Rajanna MT705-Hemanth Kumar V MT706-Akhila K S MT707-Christopher Albinus David MT708-Krithivasan S MT709-Uma K T MT710-Cija Augustus MT711-Minal H Morje MT712-Vinod Menon MT713-Anupam Jain MT714-Sidharth Nahata MT715-Ashok D I MT716-Hemant H Pandey MT717-Vinitha E Mathew MT718-Akash Raj Gaud MT719-Akhtar Abbas Abidi MT720-Divesh Kumar MT721-Nantha Kumar S MT722-Praveen E G MT723-Trupti Ramachandra Kanade MT724-Anisha Patro MT725-Manish Yadav MT726-Pritu Hait MT727-Puja Archana De MT728-Rohit A Chalvade MT729-Sriker D MT730-Suheim Azhar MT731-Tahir Naqqush Timsagar MT732-Smita Sarkar MT733-Naveen K MT734-Skanda Ananthakrishnan MT735-Basanth D Y MT736-Narayan Pahwa MT737-Shyam Sunder MT738-Sreedevi B P MT739-David D'Cruz MT740-Dependra Maiya Rai MT741-Kavita Sinha MT742-Madhurima Ray Subhir MT743-Maleha Siddiqua MT744-Mohammad Faraz Hafeez MT745-Mohammed Naeem MT746-Brian Christopher Bangera MT747-Meenakshi Guhan MT748-Pradeep Rajendran MT749-Shailesh Ramdas Pote

The 10 Million Exams Team (EmpID 250 - 499)

2010-08-14T15:17:00.000+05:30

MT250-Karishma Parikh MT251-Prathibha Mp MT252-Prashantha. K. Banakappa MT253-Sowmya S M MT254-Lubna Khaleeli MT255-Murli Mohan Channa MT256-Divya.B.R MT257-Naina Agarwal MT258-Rashmi Boyi MT259-Ankush Jhamb MT260-Dilip Kumar A MT261-Sunish Kumar P MT262-Barna Chatterjee MT263-Nilanjana Mukharjee MT264-Srinath.P MT265-Vinutha.S.V MT266-Sunitha Rajakumari. M MT267-Anand G MT268-Pramod Harith R MT269-Ronald P Abraham MT270-Asha.S.G MT271-Rashid Ahmed MT272-Kapil Mathur MT273-Zahra Shabbir Tambawala MT274-Veena R MT275-Vinay J MT276-Satheesh. K. R MT277-Suresh. K MT278-Nagamma.H MT279-Saroj Kumar MT280-Srikant N MT281-Umar Hasan MT282-Mrinalini Shinde MT283-Raj Singh Tanwar MT284-Madhuri Adivi MT285-Gurunath Gaikwad MT286-Niveditha.B MT287-Priyanka Gulrajani MT288-Shyni Shreedharan MT289-Subramanya. B. N MT290-Manthasha Ahmed MT291-Ranjit Chiristopher Picardo MT292-Askula Santoshi Kumari MT293-Pavani Akella MT294-Maria Nancy A MT295-Sahana. S MT296-Umesh Jayaraman MT297-Surabhi. T MT298-Madhusudhan Reddy P MT299-Prashanth.C MT300-Sanman K MT301-Ramesh S MT302-Srinivasa.M.A MT303-Kartik Kesarkar MT304-Sanjay B MT305-Shanti Naidu MT306-Abhilasha Naik MT307-Prasanna.K MT308-Vijaya Talluri MT309-Sai Kishore Rachokonda MT310-Sai Kiran A MT311-Usha Kiran MT312-Dev Kiran B MT313-Ashwin Vinod Malshe MT314-Shurobi Choudhury MT315-Naveeduddin Khan MT316-Deepthi Chimakurthy MT317-Himanshu Sekhar Mohalik MT318-Karthik.M.N MT319-Anand Vishwanth MT320-Murali Manhohara.N MT321-Manav Mishra MT322-Gita Baratam.P MT323-Sahana H.S MT324-Jesbin Ajayakumar MT325-Vanishri.C.Natekar MT326-John Amirtharaj MT327-Vinod Kumar MT328-Prashant Sharma MT329-Linda Kadavil MT330-Suresh.M MT331-Mahesha M MT332-Rajeev Menon MT333-Pavan Panchamukhi MT334-Sourav Roy MT335-Vinod Nagraj MT336-Samatha K Prasad MT337-Anand Gopal Pm MT338-Mohammed Asif Akbar MT339-Karim Kamaluddin Hudani MT340-Scovill D'Silva MT341-Manjiri Seth MT342-Sweety Pereira MT343-Sandhya Bhavaraj MT344-Vandana Nagesh MT345-Shiva Kumar Bandaru MT346-Venkatachalamaiah S K MT347-Madhavi L Lakkineni MT348-Nithya Ramesh MT349-Mudit Bakshi MT350-Sridevi Seetamraju MT351-Pravesh Rana MT352-Rajesh Gopal MT353-Sreeram S MT354-Vadivel V MT355-Harish M MT356-Kasturba Rout MT357-Clayton D'Souza MT358-Swaminath Sundaram MT359-Vidisha Lade MT360-Kiran Kumar R MT361-Radha Ranganathan MT362-Hemant Chavan MT363-Manjori Bhattacharya MT364-Rashmi Nair MT365-Sonali Bhawsar MT366-Shashank K MT367-Navya V MT368-Pooja M Anand MT369-Anil Sharma MT370-Ashwin Bhat J MT371-Ajay Kuncham MT372-Praveen M H MT373-Nagraj H G MT374-Munira Y Badri MT375-Subha Sivaraman MT376- Krishna Chaitanya T V MT377-Anuj Gangola MT378-Rajeshwari Patil MT379-Sairam B V Nistala MT380-Aneesh Jain MT381-Chakradhar Y V MT382-Shashidhara K MT383-Arvind Thothadri MT384-Ranvijay Singh MT385-Sayed Sameer Ali Hussain MT386-Swachand Astekar MT387-Vidya Ramesh MT388-Preetham Setty T D MT389-Alok Srivastava MT390-Subbulakshmi V MT391-Punitha Dwarakanath MT392-Thandra Kiran Babu MT393-Jitendra S Samsani MT394-Santosh Saligram MT395-Nagaraju Alivelu MT396-Shashank A Vagale MT397-Praveen Kumar K MT398-Vikas Mirmira MT399-Manjunath Doopad MT400-Karthikeyan S MT401-Manoj Kumar MT402-Kishore G L MT403-Geetha K R MT404-Abhinav Thakur A T MT405-Godha Doraiswamy MT406-Ramya M MT407-Deepika Abrol Sahni MT408-Vipul V Hardi MT409-Sooraj M Joseph MT410-Renu Sevanthi Dilipan MT411-Jayalakshmi T.S MT412-Geetha Gudavalli MT413-Mamta Karmokar MT414-Narayanan V MT415-Ravi Babu Jm MT416-Rohit Sharma MT417-Sheetal Jayarajan MT418-Vishwajeet Kumar MT419-Pavan Rao.S MT420-Vasanthi Kps MT421-Satyabrata Panda MT422-Gagan Joshi MT423-Ajay Kumar MT424-Ramola Vaz C MT425-Nikhila Vuppala MT426-Padmashree.D.S MT427-Govindaswamy B MT428-Mangala H MT429-Dilraj Kapse MT430-Chandan Kumar Ranjan MT431-Vv Balaji MT432-Devanand Chavan MT433-Bibu Yohannan MT434-Mousumi Panda MT435-Jasmine Suri MT436-Hari Krishna E MT437-Swetha S MT438-Prashanth.M MT439-Ilyas Yusuf Juwale MT440-Jacob Ninan MT441-Neelu Young MT442-Suchika Pillai MT443-Kirti Kiron MT444-Gaurav Wahi MT445-Amrutha C MT446-S Sarah Fathima MT447-Jay Ashar MT448-Suraj Shanai MT449-G Ramesh MT450-Subin Sundar MT451-Ajay K.N MT452-Pratibha Bansal MT453-Leeladhar Rao MT454-Shahkar Alam MT455-Sumant B Kulkarni MT456-Jyotsna Kaushik MT457-Tauseef H Valki MT458-Parivesh Saldhi MT459-Gaurav Phukan MT460-Seejoe George MT461-Arvind Kannan MT462-Abhilash G S MT463-Madhu Krishna Koushik.P MT464-K K Rajesh MT465-Shruthi Muralidhar MT466-Gowri Subramanya MT467-Piyush Ghosal MT468-N Harish Babu MT469-Ananya Halder MT470-Poonam Choudhury MT471-Chinmayi.H.D MT472-Abhinav Sharma MT473-Pushpa Kumari MT474-Varsha Karamchandani MT475-S N Alagurajan MT476-Praveen S MT477-P Chandana MT478-Anukampa Tiwari MT479-Jyothsna A Jain MT480-Sridhar Sharma MT481-George Mathew MT482-Shubha Gupta MT483-Padma Rp MT484-Dheeraj Raj Singh MT485-Ranjith Kumar.K.R MT486-Navin B Nichani MT487-Satyajit Datta MT488-Harish Kumar Kv MT489-Padmashree Cv MT490-Prabhakar K MT491-Hima Bindu An MT492-Ashish Pachouly MT493-Ranjeet Singh Lamba K MT494-Veeraj Gopalkrishnan MT495-Krishna Kanth.V MT496-Bhavya H N MT497-Milind Laxman Sakpal MT498-Rahul Kumar Vallabhaneni MT499-Bhaskar K

The 10 Million Exams Team (EmpID 1 - 249)

2010-08-14T15:12:00.003+05:30

MT001-Murlidhar.S MT002-Madan.A.Padaki MT003-Ganesh Babu D N MT004-Prashanth B MT005-Lakshmi S MT006-Veeranna Gowd K MT007-Manjunath K P MT008-Dhananjay B T MT009-Punam Samyal MT010-Ravi Kumar G MT011-Mohan Kannegal MT012-Hemamalini MT013-Padmaraj MT014-Srinath K S MT015-Rajesh MT016-Joseph Sathyaraj J A MT017-Krishna N MT018-Divya K MT019-Sunil S L MT020-Ophelia A MT021-Sujeendran Nair V MT022-Navya K MT023-Vinutha N MT024-Nandini V MT025-Raghunath D MT026-Balagopal K S MT027-Kumar S MT028-Shilpa MT029-Gowrisha M G MT030-Goldy Kakkar MT031-Lakshmi S S MT032-Kirti Vardhana N MT033-Sushma J MT034-Chandini Davies MT035-Sangeetha G MT036-Krushna A Prasad MT037-Joyanta MT038-Mohit B Khurana MT039-Soumya K S MT040-Keerthana Kuttappa MT041-Balaji M MT042-Upasana Aneja MT043-Brinda G S MT044-Shalini Kamath MT045-Sampada S Mathkar MT046-Anand Chintala MT047-Anand Bhyaravan K N MT048-Sachin Shoney MT049-Satish Kumar MT050-Jayanth K MT051-Ravi Kumar M MT052-Hemangini Mahesh MT053-Narayan Balaji Rao MT054-Sridhar Mallela MT055-Murli S M MT056-Srinivas B V MT057-Somashekar E MT058-Ravikumar R S MT059-Bhavana S MT060-Pavan Sriram MT061-Harish K L MT062-Nandita Kondepudi MT063-Abhay Vinerkar MT064-Yogeetha.N.Kamath MT065-Phani Shashank MT066-Sreekrishna V N MT067-Syed Asif MT068-Harish B MT069-Venkatesh MT070-Mahesh Loganathan MT071-Seetalakshmi Iyer MT072-Ravi Kumar D MT073-Thirunavukkarasu MT074-Vinay S Rasam MT075-Sunil.G.L MT076-Namrata Nagaraj MT077-Manjunath S. MT078-Neetu Rawat MT079-Seema Warrier MT080-Akshatha Rao MT081-Amitabh Chaudhury MT082-Shruthi Alva MT083-Sapna Gupta MT084-Nisha K Chandran MT085-Padmashree S V MT086-Abhishek Mohanty MT087-Muralidhar B S MT088-Naveen C MT089-Kavitha C. MT090-Ananthnag P MT091-Jyothirmayee P MT092-Hima Bindu A N MT093-Anil Kumar C H MT094-Amarnath Jagadish Pilla MT095-Mohammed Abdul Salam MT096-Krupa Vaideeswaran MT097-Vinay Kaushik N MT098-Ritu Ganguly MT099-Shwetha G V MT100-Aparajita Balyan MT101-Neeraj Isukapally MT102-Catherine Farina Austin MT103-Vishnu Ram Saiiruvanti MT104-Swarnalatha MT105-Rachana Suroop MT106-Satyanarayana MT107-Vamshi Krishna K MT108-Gayathri Krishnan MT109-Rashmi Parvathy K MT110-Vidya Viswanathan MT111-Shivakumar C MT112-Amit Raghuvanshi MT113-Hariprasad K MT114-Hemanth Prakash MT115-Kaustuba S R MT116-Swetha Joseph MT117-Ali Ahmed MT118-Swapna G MT119-Madhushree Dutta MT120-Rajiv Srivastava MT121-Arpitha Samyal MT122-Prathibha Shekar MT123-Praveen Motebennur S MT124-Rashmi Nair MT125-Karthik Vijayaraghavan MT126-Akshatha Rao MT127-Ram Gurunath Naik MT128-Byndoor Prashanth Shet MT129-Chandana Bala MT130-Sajna K A MT131-Ganesh Prasad N MT132-Ravi Kumar.G MT133-Kavitha S MT134-Rahul P C MT135-Mani Kishan M MT136-Kranti Kiran MT137-Avishek Ganguly MT138-Rekha J MT139-Mori Susmitha MT140-Arthi Ravikumar MT141-Avvari Raghava Krishna MT142-Swapna Gopichand MT143-Raja Rangaswamy M MT144-Vaijayantimala Kotiyan MT145-Sai Lakshmi Reddy K S MT146-Poornima D Kamath MT147-Deepali Shukla MT148-Shanoj K MT149-Kajal Nanjappa MT150-Krishna Vivek Moorthy MT151-Suryanarayanan.T.V MT152-Rajesh Pp MT153-Vivek Raval MT154-Mohammed Shahed Akhter MT155-Arun Kumar Ramanujan MT156-Uppu Abhishek MT157-Anil Kumar MT158-Rosemary George MT159-Dhaval Shah MT160-Lokanath S MT161-Prasoon Sadanandan MT162-Aruna Param MT163-Bharat Kumar MT164-Lalitha Pramod MT165-Hema.T.R MT166-Sachin V Parikh MT167-Smriti Jhunjhunwala MT168-Nagaraj D MT169-Pooja Jayaram MT170-Kalyani P MT171-Hema Swamy MT172-Priya Raj MT173-Junaid Kuravale MT174-Sweta Singh MT175-Deepa.G MT176-Swati Khetarpal MT177-Pallavi Pandey MT178-Sundeep MT179-Surat Roshini T MT180-Sachin Sudhakar Indulkar MT181-Sumeet Kaur Dua MT182-Prashanth Hanumantharayappa MT183-Sriharsha K MT184-Nanda Kumar M P MT185-Ifraz Pasha MT186-Pravin Daniel MT187-Lokesh S MT188-Jagadeesh B MT189-Shilpa Bidathanapalli MT190-Malancha Chakraborty MT191-Theresin Melody C R MT192-Ayan Debnath MT193-Alphy Titus MT194-Deepak Royal MT195-Surekha H N MT196-Deepak Josey MT197-Gowrisha M G MT198-Sridhar R MT199-Bharatesha Babu R MT200-Rini Annie MT201-Mary Reena D'Paul MT202-Mahesh Ramkrishna Parab MT203-Payal Mehrotra MT204-Smitha Simgekar MT205-Poustina Manju Margaret MT206-Sumantha N S MT207-Bharathi Raja Polomati MT208-Kalai Selvi MT209-Jyothirmayi Kartik MT210-Meenakshi B MT211-Vijay Venkatraman MT212-Gloria Esther Heather MT213-Runa Dass MT214-Raghavendra S MT215-Santosh B C MT216-Sindhuja P MT217-Ankur Tyagi MT218-Jayashree N MT219-Roopa Shree K MT220-Puja Gurung MT221-Sandhya Hardikar MT222-Rahul Sherigar MT223-Prashanth Kumar U MT224-Sandhya M N J MT225-Gururaj Hegade MT226-Saviana Phulsunghe MT227-Prakash K R MT228-Sachindra H J MT229-Lekha Bansal MT230-Uday Sharda MT231-Balu Chavan MT232-Girish S MT233-Chandana Bala MT234-Rajeev Sharma MT235-Payal Singh MT236-Soumendra Chandrasekhar Biswal MT237-Hareesh Lakshmanan MT238-Maria Leena D'Paul MT239-Terence Anthony MT240-Ajay Maniyar MT241-Asha Yada MT242-Vindhya Reddy K MT243-Shubhangi Rastogi MT244-Surya Prakash N MT245-Mohammed Sarfaraz Ahmed MT246-Anamika T.Chada MT247-J Santhy MT248-Shefali Singh MT249-Sarah Rao

The MeritTrac Football Team!!

2010-08-13T15:49:00.001+05:30

The stars of the MeritTrac Football Team ... in the midst of delivering 10 million exams they also found time to train, design jerseys for themselves and play a corporate tournament. Did not make it to the finals yet, but will happen in a few months

MeritTrac Turns 10 (Born August 4th, 2000)

2010-08-04T21:34:00.002+05:30

MeritTrac turns 10 today - born August 4th, 2000. At 10, MeritTrac has delivered 10 million exams. The MeritTrac story ...

Probably One Of The Best Competency Dictionaries !

2010-05-17T10:55:00.000+05:30

This competency dictionary seems to be comprehensive and well thought out.

http://www.workitect.com/pdf/Competency_Dictionary.pdf

Apple iPad sells 1 million in 28 days !!

2010-05-06T09:39:00.000+05:30

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/apple-ipad-reaches-one-million-sold-twice-as-fast-as-iphone/

This is going to have a profound impact on education and assessments. We are probably this close to universal computer based exams. With a device like the iPad, computer based assessments will be controllable, predictable and scalable.

70 Palgrave Macmillan Journals - Free in May 2010

2010-05-06T09:37:00.000+05:30

Palgrave Macmillan is offering 70 journals for free online access in May at

http://www.palgrave-journals.com/pal/jnlindex.html

Of interest to assessment - Higher Education Policy, International Journal of Educational Advancement, European Journal of Information Systems

The alpabetical listing of the journals below...

A - C

Acta Politica
American Journal of Psychoanalysis
Annual Abstract of Statistics
Asian Business & Management
BioSocieties NEW
British Politics
Business Economics
Comparative Economic Studies
Comparative European Politics
Contemporary Political Theory
Corporate Reputation Review
Crime Prevention and Community Safety
Top of page

D - F
Development
Eastern Economic Journal
Economic & Labour Market Review
The European Journal of Development Research
European Journal of Information Systems
European Management Review
European Political Science
Family Spending
Feminist Review
Financial Statistics
French Politics
Top of page

G - I
The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice
The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review
Health Statistics Quarterly
Higher Education Policy
IMF Economic Review NEW
IMF Staff Papers
Information Visualization
International Abstracts in Operations Research/IAOR Online
International Journal of Disclosure and Governance
International Journal of Educational Advancement
International Politics
Top of page

J
Journal of Asset Management
Journal of Banking Regulation
Journal of Brand Management
Journal of Building Appraisal
Journal of Commercial Biotechnology
Journal of Database Marketing & Customer Strategy Management
Journal of Derivatives & Hedge Funds (formerly Derivatives Use, Trading & Regulation)
Journal of Digital Asset Management
Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice (formerly Interactive Marketing)
Journal of Financial Services Marketing
Journal of Generic Medicines
Journal of Information Technology
Journal of International Business Studies
Journal of International Relations and Development
Journal of Medical Marketing
Journal of the Operational Research Society
Journal of Public Health Policy
Journal of Retail & Leisure Property
Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management
Journal of Simulation
Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis for Marketing
Top of page

K - P
Knowledge Management Research & Practice
Latino Studies
Maritime Economics & Logistics (formerly International Journal of Maritime Economics)
Monthly Digest of Statistics
Organization Management Journal
OR Insight
Pensions
Place Branding and Public Diplomacy
Polity
Population Trends
postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies NEW
Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society (formerly the Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture & Society)
Top of page

R - U
Regional Trends
Risk Management
Security Journal
Social Theory & Health
Social Trends
Subjectivity
Tourism and Hospitality Research
United Kingdom Balance of Payments - The Pink Book
United Kingdom Economic Accounts
United Kingdom National Accounts - The Blue Book
United Kingdom National Statistics Collection, The
United Kingdom National Statistics Collection: Economics & Finance, The
United Kingdom National Statistics Collection: Society & Health, The
URBAN DESIGN International

CAT saved 1,000 trees by going online !!

2010-03-14T17:48:00.002+05:30

http://in.news.yahoo.com/32/20100313/1053/tnl-cat-saved-1-000-trees-by-going-onlin.html

HT Hindi Article on Online Exam Advantages

2010-03-14T11:40:00.001+05:30

New Examination Services - On Screen Marking/Biometric Authentication

2010-03-10T19:56:00.000+05:30

Click the link below to download a brochure on the new examination services offered by MeritTrac - includes On Screen Marking, Biometric Authentication of candidates and a Question Bank Authoring application.

www.tractalent.com/Entrance+AuthenTrac.pdf

AuthenTrac: Biometric Authentication For Exams

2010-03-10T19:50:00.001+05:30

Click the links below for brochures on biometric candidate authentication

Biometric Authentication For Semester Exams

www.tractalent.com/Semester+AuthenTrac.pdf

Biometric Authentication For Entrance Exams

www.tractalent.com/Entrance+AuthenTrac.pdf

GATE to go completely online !

2010-03-09T15:00:00.000+05:30

Another vote for computer based exams ... see the article here.

http://www.mydigitalfc.com/education/gate-go-completely-online-410

Quote from the article - Murlidhar S, COO, MeritTrac Services "Out of 200 million exams in higher education conducted in 2009, only 0.75 million were online. The market opportunity, therefore, is massive."

How Exam Results Can Be Released Without Glitches

2010-03-01T12:16:00.000+05:30

A few ideas on how large exam results can be announced online without servers freezing/hanging.

1) Release exam results through bulk email and bulk SMS a day before the actual result day. This way candidates get to know their results and do not all have to access the same website at the same time. This requires that students are told in the prospectus and during the exam process that results will be available through email/SMS and the website. Bulk email and bulk SMS are consumer applications today and are available off-the-shelf for use.

2) Operationally reduce load on the server by announcing roll numbers 1 to 100,000 on one URL, 100,001 to 200,000 on a second URL and so on. Also within the roll numbers Day 1 can have results only for 0 - 25,000 and Day 2 for 25001 onwards etc. Or it could be announced zone wise over 4 - 5 days. This will work provided the results have already been announced over email and SMS so students are not anxious to check the website but would like to see their scores on the website too.

3) If operationally easing load is not an option, use the cloud (Amazon/Google) . The key challenge here is of concurrency. IT Infrastructure has to be setup to handle upto 200,000+ requests every hour. But then this IT Infra is required only for a few days. The ideal solution is to deploy this on a 15 - 20 server configuration on the cloud where the servers are rented for a few days and through a load balancer can handle the load

4) The software architecture has to be built for scale. (refer http://highscalability.com/). The usual culprit is the RDBMS. I am guessing that in this case, they had scores in a database and each time a query ran from the webpage to the RDMBS, did a select and fetched and presented it. As most high scale apps will tell you, the RDBMS is the enemy of scale and concurrency. For this kind of use it is better to publish all the results into an XML or a flat file and to fetch the file and display it because the file system is always faster than the RDMBS. For instance each ID's results are stored in a file (file name = ID.html) in a folder on the server. The filesystem searches for the file and displays it as-is inside the browser. Will scale without a glitch.

5) For more ideas, refer http://highscalability.com/ on handling scale. Gives examples of Facebook, Youtube, salesforce who manage truly humongous concurrency.

Impact of CAT results delay

2010-01-16T13:14:00.001+05:30

Here are two articles which highlight the impact of the CAT results delay - MICA and Great Lakes Institute of Management wants to do their own tests.

http://www.mbauniverse.com/campusinner-id-2792.htm

http://www.pagalguy.com/2010/01/mica-to-not-consider-cat-scores-for-admissions-this-year/

ETS Standards - Quality & Fairness

2010-01-12T20:06:00.002+05:30

Came across this document from ETS on exam Quality and Fairness. Very interesting document. Available on the ETS website.

http://www.ets.org/Media/About_ETS/pdf/standards.pdf

A Very Successful Computer Exam by Wipro & MeritTrac

2010-01-07T17:54:00.002+05:30

Online exams scheduled for 24,000 candidates over 7 days in 29 cities; all tests delivered successfully on Pariksha, MeritTrac`s platform for high-stakes, large scale exams Bangalore, 6th Jan 2010:

Wipro, in collaboration with MeritTrac successfully conducted a national-level online common entrance test for admissions to Wipro Academy of Software Excellence (WASE). The test was conducted for admissions to their Master of Science program, - WASE, which is an off-campus ‘earn while you learn’ program pioneered by Wipro in collaboration with BITS, Pilani. MeritTrac, India’s largest test & assessment company was the partner for this exam

The national level test was conducted between 13th and 20th December across 29 cities, in 44 testing centers, with 24,000 candidates being scheduled for the exam. The entire test delivery process achieved a success rate of 99.8%. Pradeep Bahirwani, Vice-President, Talent Acquisition said, “Wipro firmly believes in the power of the online medium and that the online exams are the future of assessment systems. We decided to go ahead with our series of online tests with MeritTrac and completed the assessments on schedule to the complete satisfaction of all the stake holders. It was a great experience for us as well as the candidates.” He also said “The success of the WASE assessment test has been very encouraging and Wipro will be using the online assessment model for campus recruitments and other hiring needs”.

The test was conducted using the Pariksha platform for large-scale, high-stakes exams, which was launched by MeritTrac in November 2009. Madan Padaki, Co-Founder & CEO, MeritTrac commented, “We are proud to have partnered with Wipro on this initiative of online exams. The successful conduct of this exam reiterates our belief that with a clearly defined exam process, appropriate technology, trained people and efficient project management, it is possible to deliver online exams successfully. .” Earlier this year, MeritTrac had conducted the Gujarat Common Entrance Test (GCET 2009) for over 23,000 candidates across 11 cities in Gujarat. The Online GCET project recently won the Chairman Distinction Award at the Manthan South Asia Awards 2009 in Delhi. “This is just the beginning. Several educational institutions, Governments and large organizations have shown active interest in taking their assessments online on the Pariksha platform”, added Mr.Padaki.

WASE is a four year, eight semester course where the candidates train with Wipro and work on live projects on weekdays and attend classes over the weekends. The first seven semesters comprises of course work, with the eighth semester being a dissertation. At the end of four years, candidates get an MS degree from BITS, Pilani equivalent to their full-time two year MS degree program. Wipro bears the entire course fee and also pays the WASE candidates a monthly stipend for the duration of the course (four years).

Learning SQL Server 2005

2009-12-28T23:37:00.000+05:30

Considering how important data management is in examinations it is imperative that Assessment professionals are well versed in database management. As a specific example here - this blog provides links and resources for Assessment professionals who wish to learn SQL Server.

For someone who does not know about databases I would recommend the following steps in order

Step 1: Read "Database Tutorials For Beginners" which is a free download at

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/4209267/Database-tutorials-for-beginners

(note that you have to register with http://www.docstoc.com/ to download it. It is worth doing since http://www.docstoc.com/ contains several free ebooks)

Step 2: Read "An Introduction to SQL" which is a free download at

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/2687080/An-Introduction-to-SQL

(note that you have to register with www.docstoc.com to download it. It is worth doing since www.docstoc.com contains several free ebooks)

Step 3: Buy Microsoft SQL Server 2005 for Dummies (Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Inc

ISBN: 0764577557) - available in India online at

http://www.indiaplaza.in/search.aspx?catname=Books&srchkey=title&srchVal=Microsoft+SQL+Server+2005+For+Dummies+

Step 3: Download and install SQL Server Express which is a free download available at http://www.microsoft.com/Sqlserver/2005/en/us/express-down.aspx

(Download both Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition and SQL Server Management Studio Express.)

Try out some of the usual challenges in Exam Data management using SQL Server. Happy Learning !!

GMAT cheating worries US colleges

2009-12-17T21:14:00.000+05:30

An interesting article on GMAT Cheating in China

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/life/2009-12/17/content_9192911.htm

An Interesting Article on Essay Grading Outsourcing

2009-12-12T15:41:00.000+05:30

An interesting article on how some international universities are outsourcing their essay grading to India.

http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/dec/11/indian-professors-clear-outsourcing-test.htm

How CAT could have been done better?

2009-12-09T08:54:00.003+05:30

In the backdrop of the Indian CAT 2009 exam challenges students faced (this exam was done by Prometric) here is an article I wrote on doing this well.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/manager/2009/12/07/stories/2009120750310600.htm

IRT Ebook

2009-09-28T11:29:00.004+05:30

Dr. V. Natarajan's has published an ebook on IRT titled "The Basic Principles of Item Response Theory". He is one of the world's leading experts on IRT and has worked extensively on the theory and applications of IRT. He is passionate about IRT - believes it is one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century. Through his ebook, he wishes to make IRT accessible and interesting to young learners of assessment theory. He has made this ebook available for free downloads since he wishes it to reach as many students of assessment as possible.

You can click the link below to download a copy of the ebook.

www.tractalent.com/Basic+Principles+Of+Item+Response+Theory.pdf

Dr. V. Natarajan, is Professor Emeritus at MeritTrac Services. He is an Engineer & a D.Litt in Educational Evaluation and Administration. He guides the Test Development and Research teams at MeritTrac. He is the author of 68 books and over 60 international papers on assessment and a pioneer in the area of education assessments in India. He is a visiting faculty at ETS, Princeton, USA, and has been a member of the Association of Indian Universities for over three decades. He had the privilege of being taught the advanced principles of IRT from Dr. Fred Lord of ETS.

Assessments Virtual Lab

2009-09-27T19:53:00.005+05:30

The "Assessments Virtual Lab" is a blog with MeritTrac publications and writings on assessments. We are working on enabling assessment experts across the world to contribute to the blog. We will also link other assessment resources across the world to this blog. This is a non-commercial platform to encourage people to share assessment research information to a wider audience of assessment experts.

Setting Assessment Standards

2009-05-09T23:29:00.002+05:30

The MS Word document (9 pages) attached to this post discusses different Assessment Standard setting processes.

Click the link below to download this document.

http://www.tractalent.com/Setting+Assessment+Standards.doc

Standards (In General)

2009-05-09T23:05:00.000+05:30

This post defines Standards and lists the uses of a Standard. This is a preamble to a detailed discussion on Assessment Standards.

What Is A Standard?

A Standard is a published document that contains a technical specification or other precise criteria designed to be used consistently as a rule, guideline, or definition. Standards help to make life simpler and to increase the reliability and the effectiveness of many goods and services we use. Standards are created by bringing together the experience and expertise of all interested parties such as the producers, sellers, buyers, users and regulators of a particular material, product, process or service.

Standards are designed for voluntary use and do not impose any regulations. Any Standard is a collective work. Committees of manufacturers, users, research organizations, government departments and consumers work together to draw up Standards that evolve to meet the demands of society and technology.

What Are The Benefits Of Standards?

Standards are a powerful tool for organizations of all sizes, supporting innovation and increasing productivity. Effective Standardization promotes forceful competition and enhances profitability, enabling a business to take a leading role in shaping the industry itself. Standards allow a company to:

• Attract and assure customers
• Demonstrate market leadership
• Create competitive advantage
• Develop and maintain best practice

Standards Are Powerful Marketing Tools

The ability to demonstrate compliance with widely recognised and respected Standards is an effective means of differentiation in a competitive marketplace. In addition, manufacturing products or supplying services to appropriate Standards maximises their compatibility with those manufactured or offered by others, thereby increasing potential sales and widespread acceptance.As consumers become increasingly informed about their choices, conformity to recognised Standards becomes pivotal. An example is the international Standard for environmental management (ISO 14001), increasingly used by businesses to demonstrate environmental responsibility.

Standards Are A Respected Badge of Quality

Customers look for the independent verification that technical Standards provide. Certification marks earned by businesses whose products and practices consistently stand up to rigorous examination are instantly recognizable and act as respected badges of quality, safety and performance.

Standards Within Business

In modern business, effective communication along the supply chain and with legislative bodies, clients and customers is imperative. Standardization can deliver measurable benefits when applied within the infrastructure of a company itself. Business costs and risks can be minimised, internal processes streamlined and communication improved. Standardization promotes interoperability, providing a competitive edge necessary for the effective worldwide trading of products and services.

How Are Standards Made?

The task of drafting formal full consensus Standards (BS, EN, ISO) is usually delegated by a technical committee or subcommittee to a drafting group or panel. Occasionally a committee may commission a consultant to complete the drafting.There are specific rules for drafting Standards that must be adhered to. These are designed to ensure that Standards meet their aim of providing, for common and repeated use, rules guidelines or characteristics for activities. They are founded on usability, verifiability and commonality.

How Are Standards Used?

The use of Standards is increasingly becoming a prerequisite to worldwide trade. A very large percentage of export is influenced by the European and international Standards business. For instance all European Union Standards are automatically adopted as British Standards.

Standards are also used as flexible alternative to regulation.

In fast-moving industries and sectors, Standards can also offer huge savings in Research and Development costs. Where common platforms for technological advances are established, tested and shared with all interested parties this can ensure commercial viability and consumer confidence.

Standards are essential to trade in increasingly competitive markets. They ensure any business offering products, services or processes is:

• cost-effective and time efficient• commercially viable• credible• safe.

They can also make significant impact on society at large. For example, as purchasers or users of products we would soon notice of they turned out to be of poor quality, do not fit, are incompatible with equipment we already have, are unreliable or dangerous. We are usually unaware of the role played by Standards in raising levels of quality, safety, reliability, efficiency and interchange ability - as well as in providing such benefits at an economical cost.

A Standard that illustrates this is:

• BS 8300:2001 Design of buildings and their approaches to meet the needs of disabled people - Code of practice

Above all, any business, large or small, can benefit from the conformity and integrity that Standards will bring. Through the development and adoption of best practice guidelines companies and organizations can make sure they are meeting consumer concerns and keeping up with best practice.

Assessment is a key part of the Standards reform movement. The first part is to set new, higher Standards to be expected of every student. Then the curriculum must be aligned to the new Standards. Finally, the student must be assessed if they meet these Standards of what every student “must know and be able to do”. A high school diploma which is given on passing a high school graduation examination or Certificate of Initial Mastery is awarded only when these Standards are achieved.

A criterion is set up for Standards of what every student or child is expected to know, and a score is set compared to these benchmarks rather than a ranking compared to a norm. It is fully expected that every child will become proficient in all areas of academic skills by the end of a period, typically 10 years but sometimes longer, after the passing of education reform bill by a state legislature.

Ebook: Basic Principles of Item Response Theory

2009-02-03T23:27:00.003+05:30

This post is to announce the release of Dr. V. Natarajan's ebook on IRT titled "The Basic Principles of Item Response Theory".

Dr. V. Natarajan is one of the world's leading experts on Item Response Theory. He has worked extensively on theory and applications of IRT. He is passionate about IRT and believes it is one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century. Through this ebook, he wishes to make IRT accessible and interesting to young learners of assessment theory. He has made this ebook available for free downloads since he wishes it to reach as many students of assessment as possible.

Dr. V. Natarajan, is Professor Emeritus at MeritTrac Services. He is an engineer and a D.Litt in Educational Evaluation and Administration, guides the Test Development and Research teams in MeritTrac. The author of 68 books and over 60 international papers on assessment, he is a pioneer in the area of education assessments in India. He is a visiting faculty at ETS, Princeton, USA, and has been a member of the Association of Indian Universities for over three decades. He had the privilege of being taught the advanced principles of IRT from Dr. Fred Lord of ETS.

You can click the link below to download a copy of the ebook.
www.tractalent.com/Basic+Principles+Of+Item+Response+Theory.pdf

A Beginner's Guide To Recruitment (ebook)

2008-09-27T06:09:00.001+05:30

This post has a link to download the ebook ”A Beginner’s Guide To Recrutiment” written by Mohan Kannegal with Karthik Vijayaraghavan. Click the link below to download the ebook.

www.tractalent.com/A+Beginners+Guide+To+Recruitment.pdf

IAEA 2008 Learning 2: Creating Assessments That Differentiate Between Experts & Novices

2008-09-22T23:54:00.001+05:30

The key note address was by Prof. Robert J Mislevy (Prof of Statistics and Measurement - University of Maryland http://www.education.umd.edu/EDMS/mislevy/). He has done research on characteristics that seperate an expert from a novice and used the learning to design assessments that are able to better identify experts and novices. The PPT is available at (http://www.iaea2008.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/ca/digitalAssets/135859_Mislevy.ppt).

A quick snapshot ... Humans have two limitations while solving problems

1) Processing Limitations (Limited Attention & Working Memory).
2) Knowledge Limitations (not knowing what info is relevant, not being able to integrate info, not knowing what to expect, lack of production profiency)

An "EXPERT" in any field is one who can OVERCOME these limitations by enhanching his/her capabilties. (Capabilities are reasoning with patterns, improvement with practice, think about thinking, benefiting from process, methods, symbols etc).

The factor that differentiates Experts in any fields from novices are
- Experts organize knowledge more effectively
- Experts interaction with a situation through "percieve - understand - act" cycles. They dont jump to act.
- Experts use knowledge representations - like symbols, nomenclature, tech jargon etc

So if you are designing an assessment to seperate Experts from Beginners keep the following in mind

- Ask these questions while desinging the assessment - What needs to be measured? What behavior or performance reveals what needs to be measured? What tasks draw out those behaviors or performance.

- In actual experiments what has been found is that experts and novices both succeed in achieving an outcome in a given task. The difference is that an Expert spends more time planning and less time executing so an expert ends up doing less revision involving rework. Experts also assume implicit constraints that novices do not consider leading to sub-optimal solutions.

- Some definitions of Expert versus Novice in the context of dentists but equally extendable to generic use are given in the tables below.

Expert	Retrieves and uses appropriate, clear, sophisticated, accurate, and precise terminology. Uses spontaneous declaration and can retrieve without effort. Creates messages that are easily understood by the target audience.
Novice	Strained, unreliable, and effortful retrieval of terminology. Hesitant, delayed, and labored responses due to time required to process and lack of knowledge. Uses terminology unsystematically. Prone to canned speeches and explanations without awareness of individual patients’ needs.

Expert	Tries to use all sources of information all the time. Constructs a model of the patient, with each source of information an imperfect and incomplete window on some aspect of the total situation. Exhibits movement back and forth between sources (resources and personal knowledge/experience), trying to fit the partial clues together into a unified whole.
Novice	Uses single information sources in isolation. Compartmentalized use of information and failure to integrate information across sources.

Expert	Forms problems and generates hypotheses using efficient, focused, and targeted action. Uses forward and deductive reasoning in formulating problems. Thinks strategically and functions within the problem space. Efficiently generates and prunes search trees.
Novice	Uses forward reasoning but scope and depth of knowledge to support forward reasoning is limited. Generates a search tree but possesses limited tools for pruning the search tree.

Actual examples of tests where the Professor has implemented this are Architectural Registration Examination, DISC Simulator and CISCO NetPASS.

IAEA 2008 Learning 1: A Contrast In Education Outcome Standards

2008-09-22T23:36:00.001+05:30

Quite a few people have been asking me about the International Association for Education Assessments (IAEA 2008) Seminar at Cambridge that I attended this month. So here is a series of blog posts on some of the things I learnt (I am motivated to write all this since I do not want people to -- rather rightly -- suspect that I was holidaying in a quaint English town :-))

This post contrasts the Education Outcome Standards of England versus those in India.

In England, a regulator for education sets assessment standards which define what the outcome of education should be for different levels of schooling and college. The regulator, Ofqual (http://ofqual.gov.uk/) ensures that all exams across different boards that award degrees follow standards while conducting examinations. A very interesting document to read would be the National Curriculum Assessments Regulatory Framework (http://www.ofqual.gov.uk/files/qca-06-2827_regulatory_framework.pdf) published by ofqual which highlights assessments standards. For instance, Page 12 of this document mentions what a Reading Test for target year group 2 should encompass. This ensures that students get fair exams that accurately reflect the quality of education imparted and imbibed.

Also, the research effort on education in general and assessments in particular to ensure that assessments are fair, accessible and of good quality is very high. The introspection on whether assessments are appropriate is also very high in England. This was noticeable in all presentations made by English representatives at the Seminar. An example of this is seen at http://ofqual.gov.uk/files/Ear_Chart03.pdf where a flow chart for appeal in case a student suspects that results are not correct is presented. While educational institutions and Universities in India also have similar processes for education regulation in general, I have noticed that there are no outcome/assessment standards defined. Further, the level of introspection on whether assessments are fair is lower. And most importantly assessment research in Education seems limited.

This is an area we in India can possibly do more work on.

IAEA 2008 At Cambridge

2008-09-09T21:38:00.001+05:30

I was at the International Association for Education Assessments 2008 Seminar at Cambridge, UK. This is the best seminar I have ever attended. The seminar had sessions covering some very exciting new areas in assessments. And the fact that it was at Cambridge magnified the effect.

I landed in London on 7th September and took the train from Heathrow to King’s Cross and from there on to Cambridge. The seminar was conducted at Robinson College and we stayed in student accommodation at Robinson College itself.

Cambridge is a quiet University town with little traffic, gigantic medieval buildings and several colleges. Since the town is on the river Cam and each college has its own private bridge across the across the river Cam, its called Cambridge.

The River Cam

For those interested in trivia … there are 31 college under Cambridge University. The oldest is Peterhouse founded in 1284 and the newest is Robinson College founded in 1977. The richest is Trinity college with 700 million pounds in fixed assets. Incidentally Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajeev Gandhi and Amartya Sen studied at Trinity College. And it is featured in Harry Potter. The picture most often shown of Cambridge is the picture of Kings College and its chapel.

The key note address for the IAEA 2008 was by a Professor Mislevy from the US who spoke about the importance of defining what an “expert” and a “novice” in any given field are. This definition serves as the start point to create assessments and to interpret scores from an assessment. He went on to describe definitions arrived at for Architecture and Dentistry from his research. This research is of great use to test creators since it can help in creation of highly valid tests. You can read more about the key note address at

http://tractalent.blogspot.com/2008/09/iaea-2008-learning-2-creating.html

and download the presentation at

http://www.iaea2008.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/ca/digitalAssets/135859_Mislevy.ppt

Several other presentations were very interesting. There is a new e-marking software application that has become popular in the UK over the last couple of years. University and School examinations are corrected on computers. Once students complete an examination, the answer scripts are scanned using huge scanners at a central processing location. The images of the answer scripts are then uploaded into a workflow based software application. The answer script images are then assigned to teachers and freelance markers for corrections. With a software application similar to Outlook, teachers and freelancer markers can download the answer scripts onto their computers sitting at home or at work and pull up the answer script images on the computer and correct it. All scores are entered into the application which automatically validates and totals the scores and sends it back to the central server. This dramatically increases efficiency of correction by removing the need to physically ship answer script papers to teachers doing the corrections and by making some of the steps such as score totaling automatic. Further freelance markers can easily be hired and used for marking. Apparently a lot of corrections of UK student responses are done out of India and Australia.

Another interesting company is Vantage Laboratories (www.vantage.com) which offers a software solution for automatic correction of essay type answers. This application is being explored by the Product Development Team and we hope to see an integration into OnTrac soon.

On the tests side, there were very interesting presentations on whether abilities tests actually test aptitude, on the taxonomy of Critical Thinking Tests and the validity of different methods of deciding cutoffs. All the papers presented are available at
http://www.iaea2008.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/

My own presentation went very well. I opened with how overwhelmed I was to be presenting at Cambridge considering 2 or 3 of our Prime Ministers have studied at Cambridge ... a few smiles. I also said 'Cambridge is a metaphor in India for what is unachievable ... for instance if you speak English well in school, people would say "Dont speak like you studied at Cambridge'" ... this was greeted with a lot of smiles. I then presented on how we have setup Pariksha centers and how they are enabling us to deliver large volume online tests. People had several questions about scalability of the model, whether we would be interested in extending this model to Africa, whether the use of biometric was legal in India (it is illegal in the UK to collect biometric data) and so on. All in all, the audience was impressed with what we had done. (email me for a copy of the PPT)
Madan’s presentation too went well. Madan presented on the NACTech program that has helped in creating more employability in India. There were questions on whether India had a regulatory body and a standards definition body. People from the UK were glad that since there were no such bodies, more innovation seems to have happened.

There was also a gala dinner organized at King's College. Incidentally you cannot walk on the lawns of King College if you are a visitor. But we all were allowed to this as a special gesture. Also there is a private bridge for each college across the Cam where visitors are not allowed. We crossed this bridge too. Dinner was in a huge hall. 4 courses followed by coffee and brandy. There was also after dinner speeches. It was the real British experience. I had a senior person in Research at Cambridge Assessments to my right and Ugandans and Dutch around us. Truly international. You can see mine and Madan's head in the photo below - bottom right - second column of tables from the right. Click on the picture to see a full sized image.

On the lighter side, I and Madan stayed on the third (top) floor of a student hostel at Robinson College which for some reason has decided not to have a lift. So we climbed six flights of stairs every day! The rooms were comfortable. We also strayed into a rock music place one of the evenings at Cambridge. We had to leave after two songs … realizing that we weren’t as young as we used to be. And this was the first conference I attended where Madan did not know any body.

A Beginner's Guide To Recruitment (ebook)

2008-04-09T23:15:00.000+05:30

This post has a link to download the ebook "A Beginner's Guide To Recrutiment" written by Mohan Kannegal with Karthik Vijayaraghavan. There is also a short introduction to the ebook.

Click the link below to download the ebook.

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/2719862/A-Beginners-Guide-To-Recruitment

About "A Beginner's Guide To Recruitment"

The success of companies hinges on the ability to recruit talent. Correspondingly, there is a need for the recruitment process to be run efficiently and productively. This book is intended to address this need by serving as a ready reference guide for Recruiters to enable them to hire better and for students interested in joining the recruitment function. The book explains the steps of the recruitment process that a Recruiter is involved in and suggests good practices for each step. In the chapters that follow, we have examined each step of the recruitment process in detail and have illustrated points with forms, tables and case studies where applicable.

This book is intended for reading by Recruiters and students who want to pursue a career in recruitment.

The book focuses on the set of recruitment activities in which Recruiters are involved. The start point of the recruitment process for a Recruiter is requisitioning people and the finish point is rolling out offer letters to selected candidates. In line with this, the book has a chapter each on

1. Requisitioning People
2. Job Opening Communication
3. Receiving CVs
4. CV Screening
5. Interview Scheduling & Coordination
6. Offer Making & On-boarding
7. Managing Recruitment

The recruitment process in companies also includes other aspects of recruitment such as manpower planning on the basis of business forecasts, managing different sources of CVs, using a variety of interviewing techniques and so on. This book does not cover these additional aspects of recruitment since these aspects of recruitment are usually handled by recruitment managers. There is a chapter on the use of pre-recruitment tests which is included since companies in India are increasingly using pre-recruitment tests and Recruiters are involved in the buying and day-to-day use of pre-recruitment tests. There are also a few new ideas on recruitment towards the end of book.

Click the link below to download the ebook.

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/2719862/A-Beginners-Guide-To-Recruitment

.

Setting Cut Scores

2007-10-12T11:02:00.002+05:30

This Post is Authored by Sree Krishna (During migration the authors name could not be migrated)
MeritTrac follows a standard methodology to arrive at a Cut (passing) Score. A passing score is the minimum score a test taker should requires to score in a test in order to be eligible to go to the next level, in a hiring scenario.

The methods of setting the standards are based on the concept of considering responses from the "borderline" test taker. This test taker is someone whose knowledge and skills are on the borderline area between the upper group and the lower group. These methods are based on the idea that, once the test takers, who belong to the upper group actually start scoring higher than those who belong to the lower group, the passing score should be that which is expected from a person whose skills are just on the borderline. The judgments these methods require are made in terms of the specific questions on the test.....

Click on the link below to download the complete article.
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/8986649/Setting-Cut-Scores

A COMMON APPLICATION FORM FOR SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS

2007-08-01T21:25:00.000+05:30

The success of IT companies hinges on the ability to recruit talent. Which is why it is critical that companies focus on improving the recruitment process. This article focuses on one step in the recruitment process – screening CVs – and describes how it can be made more accurate and efficient.

The Challenge Of Individualized CVs

The most popular mode of applying for a job is by typing out a CV in a format that appeals to the applicant (individualized), saving it as an MS Word or PDF or Text file and then emailing this CV to an employer. 60 – 90 percent of all applications a company receives are individualized CVs.

The problem with individualized CVs is that each CV presents information in different ways – some CVs start with contact information followed by education followed by employment history while others may miss out education information. Some CVs have information in chronological order while others may have it in reverse chronological order. Vital details might be missed out or may be incorrect – in our experience over 20% of all applicants either forget to mention their phone number or give a wrong phone number.

Further, screening individualized CVs is tedious and error prone. For instance, if a company’s selection criterion says, “should have a total of 2 years of experience on Java”, the CV screener has to add up time spent on each individual project in which Java was used and check if it adds up to 2 years. Moreover, since its a manual process and requires reading so much information screeners tend to make mistakes.

Since the CV screening process is time consuming, tech teams don’t do CV screening though it would be ideal if they did. It’s usually the recruitment team that does it. Since recruitment teams would not have a first hand feel of what is required it leads to wastage. For instance, a recruitment team sourcing Oracle DBAs might reject all SQL Server DBAs. Whereas the tech team may know that a few SQL Server DBAs are also required in the team since the project requires transitioning from SQL Server to Oracle databases.

Finally, considering the number of CVs screened each month – approximately 200,000 software developer CVs screened in Bangalore alone – the process needs automation. But it is impossible to use automation to accurately parse individualized CVs owing to the fact that information is presented in so many different ways. Even the most “intelligent” parser is inaccurate.

Given these issues– multiple CV formats, incomplete information, tech teams not doing CV screening, automation unfriendly CVs – there is a need for a solution which will make the process of CV screening accurate and convenient.

The Software Developer Application Form

One solution is a web application form, which an applicant fills. The advantage here is that all CVs are in the same format making it easy to search and shortlist. The disadvantage is that it requires a candidate to fill out an application form each time he or she applies to a company. And filling out web forms is cumbersome. Companies who have offered applicants the option of filling out a web form or sending an email attachment have found that only 10– 20 % of applicants fill out web forms while others send email attachments. Even companies who say “web form or no way” have to make allowances for Placement consultants and Job sites since these sources cannot be easily integrated into web forms.

A simpler solution could be for IT companies to agree on a standard Software Developer Application Form, which is acceptable to all companies. Our own experience screening over 500,000 CVs for different software development companies has shown that all companies look for the same information on a CV. Across companies, employers are interested in experience years, technologies and projects worked on, current employer and education. Given this, it is possible to adopt a “Software Developer Application Form” that is acceptable to all companies – an Industry wide standard for software developer CVs. A sample Application Form with a some of the proposed 55 fields is shown in the table. This field list can be discussed and debated till a widely accepted standard is arrived at.

Table : Software Developer Application Form

:Source :Job Ad
:ApplyingFor:Java Developer
:Name:Ashish Ram
:Email:ashish@hotmail.com
:PassportNumber:T12040
:DateofBirth:2-Oct-73
:DayPhone(withSTDCode) :08026583827
:EveningPhone(withSTDCode) :08026584557
:City(Currentresidence) :Bangalore
:WillingtoRelocateto(CityNames) :Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai
:CurrentSalary(Annual) :3.5 Lakhs
:ExpectedSalary(Annual) :4.0 Lakhs
:Skills:Core Java, J2EE
:HighestQualification: Engineering
:HighestQualificationInstitution:REC Surat
:HighestQualification(%orCGPA) :65%
:TotalSoftwareDevelopmentExperience(months) :36
:Skill1Name:Java
:Skill1Expereince(months) :4

Some rules for the Application Form would be – do NOT change field names, field names are demarcated by separator like a “:”, Application Forms are submitted in plain text format (can be opened on any OS) and the Application Form name is always + + .

With a standard Application Form, the process of CV screening becomes accurate since CV screening becomes a “process” rather than an “art” – the rules are defined and easy to explain to anyone. Further, it would possible to break up CV screening into two activities – the first part would be screening applicants on the basis of “hard” facts –age, educational background, willing to relocate etc which can be done by almost anyone. The second part would be to present the short-listed applicants’ information in a tabular format to Tech teams for them to choose candidates based on projects executed. This way, tech teams can participate in the CV screening process.

For applicants, the big benefit is “write once, apply several times”. A Job applicant would create a standard Application Form at the beginning of their career. As he or she goes along, they add or edit information on the Application Form. Each time they apply for a job, they open the standard Application Form, double check information, attach it and email it. And everyone - employers, placement companies and job sites - accepts the Application Form.

Finally, it is easy to write software to read the Application Form and upload the information into a database from where it is easy to search and retrieve information. And since all sources of CVs use the Application Form it is possible to put CVs from different sources into a single database – a big challenge currently.

Acceptance of such an Application Form has to be driven by the top IT services companies. These companies will have to agree on a standard Application Form and insist that everyone applying to them use it. With time the industry could move towards a “Only standard Application Forms accepted” model. To popularize the Application Form and to educate job applicants the Form could be made available on websites of employers, assessment companies, placement companies, HR portals, and emailed across to college campuses.

Actual Bloopers! (Written English Test)

2007-07-26T12:43:00.002+05:30

This Post is Authored by Archana D (During migration the authors name could not be migrated)

Seeing humour in everything we do is one of the best ways to stay happy they say... and thats what I did !!! Here are some of the best bloopers that I have come across while evaluating the MeritTrac Written English Tests....

Scenario 1: As the manager of an internet book store, explain to a customer as to why there was a delay in the shipment of a book.

Let me clear my stand that, we had the books till the customer who bought before you and then it went out of stock.

It was due to some problem in the ship engine. The ship was laid down in the nearby island.

The books were already loaded to ship and the ship was about leave we got a red alert signal from the whetter forecast dept that there may be a storm, so you please pull your ship if there are leaving the shores. So because of whetter reasons we had to held the ships back.

The ship was stuck in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

The ship was hijacked by sea robbers in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Scenario 2: As the manager of Reader's Digest, send a mail to existing customers requesting them to renew their subscriptions.
Please subscribe today because tomorrow never dies.

The digest has various advantages which helps in development of mental health of customer.

Sooner you are, better you get.

I kindly oblique you.

Its being a problem for the reader's reading Readers Digest.

It would be of great help if you could renew yourself as soon as possible.

Finally, I have a Career Objective taken from a resume that I found really interesting...the Monarch of Jargon!
Career objective:

Manipulating the tedious into salubrious to catch up with the palpable dividends with a relentless rapt for extracting the best from the good remains the hall mark in the scale of notching the apex.

Hope you had as much fun reading these as I had in compiling them. It would be great if all the evaluators could share their experiences with all of us!!

English Evaluation - A Personal Perspective

2007-07-26T12:37:00.001+05:30

This Post is Authored by Arindam Moulick (During migration the authors name could not be migrated)

At the dawn of the hot summer month this year - after my cool induction program at Bangalore MeritTrac office - I wondered aloud, a bit contemplatively then, that I should without recoil have to be exemplifying my sense of right and wrong that would go into expounding the entire gamut of English Evaluation (E.E.) dispensation. And once into the team of E.E. at Hyderabad office, I stepped onto the novelty of the lingual efficiency of the English language.

A ‘sense of right and wrong’ is pretty apparent a rationale, I know, but a fine combinational basis of deep-set assessment parameters furnished by MeritTrac and a sagacious ability to promptly identify or distinguish the best from out of the sizeable (sometimes sundry) restless lot seemed totally different a challenge for me. To judiciously recognize and assess the employable resources for our diverse list of clients is bound to remain a lucky inclination for me.

Basing upon my personal experiential knowledge, I tend to hypothesize on the lines that few of the job aspirants or test takers who take our wide-ranging tests seem not to realize the fact that almost every step of test taking is ‘measurable’ by standards (often defined standards), or is at once scalable based on the scores of assorted parameters relating to which we test administrators get on to score them.

Conversely, even if they (test takers) are superficially aware or are quite clearly knowledgeable about the aforementioned aspects, then they seem to take up all into their stride and score well, eventually ‘coming out’ with ‘flying colours’ and, then, an impending selection process awaits them. But, by sheer happenstance, may be, or like each cloud is said to have a silver lining, some likely selects most often than not happen to flounder. Well, this too can be reasonably explained as to why they happen to do so as they do! Several reasons have been propounded but lets not for the life of this article delve into that reality. That may be for some other time with another cup of tea.

I have had my “laughter challenges” during and after many English assessment procedures I carried out in the duration of the last three months now. I can’t help but think pretty often and habitually share them with other English Evaluators in my team, and I do so only for the sake of an agreeable experiential know-how though! There are so many unheard of bloopers, slip-ups, lapses, gaffes, and so many meaningless howlers that my personal list has already gone bust and went out of order, all smacking of some inconsequentially misused and abused English Language terrorism! But there is going to be an article written soon on that subject too in this blogosphere. So, puhleese! Hasten to fasten your seat belts!

There was as if a significant yet compelling itch to hilariously relate a few innocent offenses made by some fresh-off-the-boat aspiring candidates who were lined up for our English assessments, especially for the Spoken English first round, with my equally industrious associates. And I, eventually, could not help but surrender laughing at the often splitting or even atrociously funny, comical bloopers experienced first-hand! God is with me! Innocent mistakes are so sweet to know and almost therapeutically rejoicing! Likewise, there have been some silly peccadilloes and during that time amusing within our selves became the first point of release of our stresses and strains of our jobs. In the present times, it is more of been-there-done-that way of thinking that generally prevails upon us, without letting it concede on our deductive capacity. Bloopers or no bloopers, they matter a little less now.

The most significant facet of the E.E. exercise on a more epithelial level – depending upon the assessment criterion, for instance, whether it be Spoken, Written or Persuasive - is the elemental detection of ‘plausibility’ of the resource in question, besides which - hardly considered necessary to mention - there are other auxiliary technical traits like articulation (for Spoken - SET), sentence formation (both for Spoken and Written - WET), Indianisms, writing abilities (clearly for Written), persuasive abilities (for Persuasive Communication - PCT), etc. (all these based on defined set of parameters, normally on a scale of 1 to 5). ‘1’ is ‘poor’ and ‘5’ being ‘remarkable.’

On a personal level, I almost always tend to believe that any candidate or test-taker must have to be free from claustrophobic ideas because the answer to the given question should have to be only in accordance to the question asked and not fumbling into anything else unwanted that the interviewer never wishes to give all ears to. Because, if your answer has to be most suitable in its desired effect in that spur of the moment, then it should really have to come within the purview of the question asked and not getting “uncomfortably imbalanced” (only an opinion!) with the asker of the fine question! If not, the candidates lose marks and their general gravity found flaking off the scoreboard! The million-dollar question is how do we do it? Clear the mind from unwanted pounding that distracts. I think one needs a good night sleep after which in the morning a nice cool shower and a light breakfast in the belly! This thought is surely unconventional but trust the good Lord it helps the most.

‘Events’ the most popular action-oriented word in Operations department and in my English Evaluation dept. as well, is quite a weighty source for a good first-hand learning experience. I dub it as ‘action-oriented’ because it is really so based upon a display of pursuits and activities, what with all its direct surprises and learning expectations from interactive sources and, in fact, be as it may, the opportunity to represent MeritTrac at the most fundamental level and that which is happening right at the client’s place is most opportune a moment for MeritTracers everywhere. For any individual who is looking out for some added bonuses in terms of intermingling with a lot of business customers, then this is it: the right channel for us to represent as MeritTrac professionals our assessment competencies and know-how and to a progressive extent, as assessment executives, our kitty full of comprehensive skills assessment portfolios as well.

I have had my sojourns assessing for different customers where I noticed people performing distinguished work solely on the basis of opportune ideas that get generated while at work. At the helm of affairs were fairly consummate opinions and thoughts in rapid exchange with each other. These ideas were those, which were related to the exercises we all were primarily put out for. The stake of it all was hinged upon our very basic sense of business acumen. There has been a superior sense of belonging to the tasks at hand, by all accounts, to the good ideas and their continual consequences: mainly those which were simply generated at the spur of the moment. These ideas and exchanges most often than not look very logically bare and almost always are unaccounted for merely because they happen every day on a daily basis. But to a generic observer of ideas and thoughts of all kinds, wherever they might exist, in whatever form or substance, they eventually do form a chiseled gem quietly embedded in the chain of a wholesome experience.

I end this critique with a bated breath and, therefore, basking in the glory of the English Evaluation sunshine I shall never allow myself to sail my humble boat to the last sunset! The legend of good English language speakers does exist, but the associative contraband myth that it doesn’t, if there was one, has gone outdoors forever!

Creating Parallel forms - An Introduction and Basic Guidelines

2007-07-12T11:51:00.001+05:30

This Post is Authored by Sree Krishna (During migration the authors name could not be migrated)
These days, students usually log onto various freshers' portals to check out question papers which are used for entry-level recruitment by companies. It is obvious then, that by some means or the other, the questions/tests used in Campus Events find their way into these portals.

Needless to say, Security has been an issue for any assessment process. The primary target, it seems, is always the question papers used. Test users using assessments in their recruitment process is concerned about the security and would want assessments to be unique and different from others to ensure a fair recruitment process. This results in a great demand for creating different forms for a Test. So, to ensure security, Test creators need to build different forms of the tests. For example: if a Test creator has created a test on Electronics, having components A, B and C, he/she is expected to create different tests using the same components. This would mean that the test takers are not aware of the content of the tests before they take them.

In MeritTrac, the demand for unique sets exists because the Clients need unique sets for different events so that strict confidentiality is maintained, and questions do not get leaked. This is where Parallel Forms plays a major role.

Definition - Parallel forms:

Two or more forms of a test are considered parallel when they have been developed to be as similar to one another as possible in terms of the test specifications and statistical criteria.

Importance of Equivalence in Parallel forms:

If the parallel forms are not equal in terms of content or statistical criteria (p-value and discrimination index), it would impact the scores and hence any decision based on these scores will be inaccurate. Hence, we should take proper care before we release parallel forms to ensure we are fair to the candidates taking the test.

Let me explain this:

Suppose, we have a test of 5 items (questions) and we have created 2 forms (sets/papers) using 5 items each, for each paper. If the items are designed to check Prepositions, then, all these items should check only for Prepositions and nothing else. That is, the test taker does need to apply knowledge of any other “parts of speech” to answer these questions on Prepositions. All he/she needs to know is Prepositions. Each item will have to be created carefully so that it retains its validity measure. Otherwise, it will affect the test takers.

Similarly, if the DL (Difficulty Level) for a given question is not set after statistically verifying it, but set at random, based on the Item creator’s assumptions, the performance of the test takers will vary. For example, a typical assumption while setting a DL could be : Out of 100 test-takers who attempt this question, 40 would answer it correctly. But in reality, it could actually be 60. If a Statistical process were stringently followed to derive the DL, it would involve exposing this item to a similar group of test takers. That is, expose this item only to College Freshers or Developers with 2 years of experience, but never to a mixed audience, which comprises of both. However, while conducting such sampling exercise, the candidate should not be marked/scored on this item. That is answering this item should not affect his scores in any way. Considering our shortlist criteria to be fixed, we cannot have discrepancies in our items in terms of content and DLs, because it would impact the throughput and also the test takers.

Equivalence of test score means, variances, and errors are interpreted as evidence that tests are parallel

Considering the business demands, we might not be able to check the P and DI value before we use items in our tests. But we should create a process to monitor each item’s performance and tag the question accordingly in terms of statistical criteria. Creating a good Question Bank having all the necessary statistical criteria will enable us to create parallel forms.

Key points to remember while building Parallel forms:

When items are created for a particular content area, multiple checks have to be conducted to ensure that the items belong to the field desired. That is, while building content for Pointers in C, we should not have questions related to Arrays.

P Values (Facility values) & Discrimination Index value (The index of discrimination is a useful measure of item quality whenever the purpose of a test is to produce a spread of scores, reflecting differences in test takers’ achievement, so that distinctions may be made among the performances of test takers) for each item should be computed.

Once we decide on the Blueprint, we need to select items, which satisfy content and cognitive specifications (problem solving, application, knowledge) & statistical criteria (P value & DI value).

"Test Development" by Patrick & Harley - A review

2007-06-26T11:28:00.001+05:30

This Post is Authored by Sree Krishna (During migration the authors name could not be migrated)
There are different resources, which help us to understand the concepts of Testing or the Test Development process. I feel, that all these materials cannot be used in isolation to understand the concept. Different authors emphasize on different aspects and hence we should use more than one reading material to understand the concept. A single point reference is never advisable in these cases. As a matter of fact, some of them might not be suitable at all and might further mislead or confuse the audience.

I would suggest a few reference materials to facilitate a better understanding of the science/concept of Assessments, from beginners to advanced learners. Here are a few of them:

URLs
http://www.ukcle.ac.uk/resources/trns/mcqs/nine.html
http://www.msu.edu/dept/soweb/writitem.html
http://pareonline.net/getvn.asp?v=5&n=2

Books
Psychological Testing by Paul Kline
Psychological Testing by Anastasi
Item writing by Thomas M Haladyna

I did go through "Test Development" by Patrick and Harley and the first thought that struck my mind is "it does not cover all the aspects of Test Development in detail", "this cannot be a training document for a Test Development Team". It can be, at the best, a book to understand the basic elementary aspects of Test Development.

My apprehensions about recommending this book as a training document:

a) Does not cover the methodology of understanding/analyzing the requirements and mapping the requirements to assessments
b) Does not cover the types of assessments (so, the differences are not clearly understood)
c) Explanations are not elaborate – For example Bloom's taxonomy
d) Reasons for using Objective Assessments and their limitations - not mentioned at all
e) Guidelines for Item writing – does not emphasize the importance / significance of the line items mentioned, for example: "Research studies have proven that the negative words will have difficulty in understanding the meaning of negatively phrased items. A negatively-stated item does require a test taker to switch his or her mind set from that of looking for the best answer to that of locating the most definite non-answer" or "Use of specific determiners such as always, never, totally, absolutely, only, and completely in all the distracters or only in the right answers serve as flags to the test taker"
f) Examples provided for Item Writing Guidelines are not appropriate for MeritTrac or rather dated. The learning audience may not relate the course content back to the work place scenario.
g) Many questions are left unanswered. For example, why are Norms used, is not answered. Similarly Explanations are not satisfactory for z scores. The concepts need more clarity in terms of explanation and examples.
h) Explanations on Reliability and Validity are brief and sketchy.

I feel that Item Creators/Reviewers can use this material for reference purpose, after they have undergone a formal/extensive and interactive training on Assessment. And the textual reference will definitely enhance the acquired learning gained from the training sessions.

Inter-rater Reliability

2007-06-25T12:30:00.001+05:30

This Post is Authored by Sree Krishna (During migration the authors name could not be migrated)
Spoken English Test - one of the factors that influences the quality of this test are the raters. The quality of the evaluations is dependent on the consensus factor of each rater against the standard rater.

A note on Consensus Estimates:

Consensus estimates can be useful in diagnosing problems with the raters’ interpretations of how to apply the rating scale

Consensus estimates of inter-rater reliability are based on the assumption that reasonable raters should be able to come to exact agreement about how to apply the various levels of a scoring. If two raters come to exact agreement on how to use the rating scale to score, then the two raters may be said to share a common interpretation of the construct.

“If raters can be trained to the point where they agree on how to interpret a rating scale, then scores given by the two judges may be treated as equivalent”

There are different methods of computing Consensus estimates:

Percent-agreement: The most popular method for computing a consensus estimate of inter-rater reliability is through the use of the simple percent-agreement figure. Percent agreement is calculated by adding up the number of cases that received the same rating by both raters and dividing that number by the total number of cases rated by the two raters.

The statistic also has some distinct disadvantages, however. For example, if the behavior of interest has a low incidence of occurrence in the population, then it is possible to get artificially inflated percent-agreement figures simply because most of the values fall under one category of the rating scale (Hayes & Hatch, 1999). Another disadvantage to using the simple percent-agreement figure is that it is often time consuming and labor intensive to train judges to the point of exact agreement.

Cohen’s kappa statistic - designed to estimate the degree of consensus between two judges after correcting the percent-agreement figure for the amount of agreement that could be expected by chance alone. Kappa is a highly useful statistic when one is concerned that the percent-agreement statistic may be artificially inflated due to the fact that most observations fall into a single category.

The disadvantage to the kappa coefficient is that it is can be somewhat difficult to interpret. Uebersax (1987) has noted that one major problem is that values of kappa may differ depending upon the proportion of respondents falling into each category of a rating scale. Thus, kappa values for different items or from different studies cannot be meaningfully compared unless the base rates are identical.

Requirement Gathering - Addressing the challenges

2007-06-25T12:07:00.001+05:30

This Post is Authored by Sree Krishna (During migration the authors name could not be migrated)
The problem exists everywhere... I hear the usual terms "we did not get the complete details from the Client" or "Client did not approve the final product" or "we have sent the details to the Client, they are yet to revert"...

Steve McConnell, in his book “Rapid Development”, details a number of ways Users/Clients can unknowingly inhibit the process of Requirements gathering, which can subsequently impede the total product development process.

This may lead to the situation where the end product might not be valid or product keeps changing as we continue to receive newer requirements.

That is why, Users need to be adequately informed about the use/developmental-process of Assessments because :-

a) Users need to clearly understand what they require from the Assessments that are being developed/designed.
b) Users are apprehensive about committing to a set of written requirements.
c) Users insist on new requirements after the cost and schedule have been fixed.( Last minute requirements when the development process is already under progress.
d) Communication with users is slow.
e) Users often do not participate in reviews or might not have the bandwidth of doing so.
f) Users need knowledge upgradation on technical concepts.
g) Users do not understand the Test development process.

Educating the stakeholders (Users/Clients) about their vital role in the product developmental process is critical and should be a part of the regular process flow of any Client Interaction exercise.

IT Product Development Teams

2007-05-10T14:15:00.000+05:30

This article presents information on the working of teams in the IT Development Environment.

Traditionally, two dimensions characterize an IT Product Business Model. The first dimension is Nearness to Customers and the other being Nearness to Technology, as illustrated by the figure shown below:

Nearness to Customers would entail greater technical breadth; people management and interpersonal skills while Nearness to Technology would entail greater technical depth & expertise.

IT products related sales falls into the three main areas of pre-sales, sales, and post-sales support of hardware and software. The first area involves supporting pre-sales activities by giving detailed information about technical specifications and the ways in which they could meet the customers' needs, often demonstrating those features before a sale. The actual sale involves negotiating a commercial agreement to the benefit of both customer and supplier. The technical support, which follows the sale, can include solving faults and problems, or maximizing the use of software features, as well as advising on appropriate user training. In terms of knowledge & skills, this team is required to have basic awareness of products, key features, and markets. Although technical depth in not mandatory, people skills and good communication skills are essential.

Fundamentally, the product management team gathers and disseminates product-related requirements.The product management team understands the needs of the customers and arrives at a coherent set of product related requirements that is communicated to the development team. In terms of knowledge & skills required, this team requires both functional knowledge of the product in order to be able to interact with customers and understand their needs as well as technical knowledge in order to be able to communicate the customers’ needs to the development team. People in the product management team must be excellent communicators and need to have excellent written English skills as well, as they are required to disseminate information through presentations, conferences, customer board advisory meetings etc. Also, they need to have good interpersonal skills.

A product development team is a team of people responsible for the design of a competitive product and the related processes to manufacture and support that product. The product development team basically works with the requirements the product management team has created. The team consists of people from all disciplines that can positively impact the development of the product and improve competitive factors, not just personnel from the various design engineering disciplines. Each product development team would be staffed as appropriate for the requirements of the project and the composition of the membership may change over time. In addition to formal team members, others in the organization may be called upon to support the team's efforts. In terms of knowledge required for the role, robust knowledge of Coding, Source Control, Development Environment and Source Structure Hierarchy (configuration/header/binary files) is essential. Domain Knowledge (example: writing a C++ program for a banking application is different from a networking application) is more critical than knowledge of a specific technology. Also required is the Knowledge of Java, J2EE, XML, and Oracle Database. In terms of skills, a developer must essentially possess problem solving, analytical ability and logical thinking skills.

The testing team works off the specifications created by the product development team. The main function of the testing team is to identify the correctness, completeness, security, and quality of developed computer software/hardware. This team ensures that the developers have done the right thing. Today emphasis is on building automated tests to test products. The current trend is shifting away from product knowledge to more technical knowledge of testing tool frameworks like Mercury, Silk, and Windrunner etc.

The support team provides two levels of support. The first level is through web or phone, while the second level is through bug diagnosis. The support team provides technical assistance, support, and advice to customers and other users. These troubleshooters need to have a good understanding of the product and attend to details in order to interpret problems and provide technical support for hardware, software, and systems. Also, skills required here are problem solving, and communication skills. So also, are sensitivity- to deal with unhappy customers and crisis management skills.

This article reflects the information shared by an industry professional during the course of the guest lecture series organized at MeritTrac.

Creating Assessments - Module 2

2007-04-01T10:45:00.002+05:30

This Post is Authored by Sree Krishna (During migration the authors name could not be migrated)

This is a PPT which is Module 2 of the MeritTrac Creating Assessments Workshop. It covers score interpretation, understanding norms and classifying norms. Click the link below to download the presentation.

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/8986758/Creating-Assessments-Part-2

The link below is an "Assessment on Assessments" which is adminstered after Module 2

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/8986689/Assessment-on-Assessments

Creating Assessments - Module 1

2007-04-01T10:00:00.002+05:30

This Post is Authored by Sree Krishna (During migration the authors name could not be migrated)

The attached PPT is Module 1 of the MeritTrac Creating Assessments Workshop. It covers an introduction to assessments and defines different types of assessments. Click the link below to download the PPT.

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/8986726/Creating-Assessments-Part-1

Software Development JD - Financial Services

2007-04-01T09:32:00.000+05:30

The article is a synopsis of the role of the IT staff in financial service providing organizations which engage in residential and commercial mortgage servicing, consumer unsecured debt collections, loan origination services, and business process outsourcing to third parties.

IT IN FINANCIAL SERVICES

In the financial servicing arena the role of the IT staff is to offer automated, comprehensive, functionally integrated servicing systems to support all servicing functions. The IT staff delivers process driven technology solutions, manages and automates servicing operations, optimizes efficiencies and reduces costs – fundamentally re-engineering and streamlining the servicing processes followed.

The fundamental functions of the IT staff are:

- Design/Development/Testing and Support of applications and tools for real estate, mortgage servicing etc. For instance advanced technology is applied in collection management activities. Loans are classified at the outset in different delinquency categories (such as 1-29 days, 30+ days and so on). Customer service representatives contact delinquent borrowers. Calls are prioritized by customer payment behavior, whether loans are newly boarded, and time zone. Here software is used to determine the best time of day to call such delinquent borrowers based on previous contacts. Artificial intelligence tools are used for loans that are delinquent to predict call sequence, present call scripts to the collector, and document the flow of the scripts. Internet protocol systems are used to ensure proper telephone connection to all sites and so on.

- Servicing/Infrastructure support of Contact Centers to assist customer service representatives in responding quickly and accurately to customer inquiries. State-of-the-art technology is used to support a robust set of procedures for performing some of the customer contact functions such as call resolution, providing borrowers with a number of self-service options through an interactive website, obtaining loan information and making payments through interactive voice response unit that borrowers can use etc. Managing such servicing activities usually include maintaining of Servers, Networks, IT Telephony systems, Operating Systems, Databases, tools like Citrix etc.

KEY COMPETENCIES

The section that follows supports a list of knowledge and skills/abilities (competencies) that are critical to the success of nearly every role engaged in technology services and development in financial service providing organizations. The common knowledge and skills/abilities needed across the roles are:

- Business and Process knowledge- Although some roles are focused very specifically around certain aspects of understanding and converting business requirements, every role in technology services and development should have awareness and sensitivity to the business processes and needs. Apart from this, process knowledge also needs to be strong, for testing of functionality at every stage in technology development.

- Strong written and oral communication skills- To communicate status to the appropriate level of detail and in a timely fashion.

- Quantitative ability -The ability for computation and application

- Problem solving - The ability to approach solutions from multiple perspectives and exercise judgment when solving problems.

- Lifelong learning – The perspective of continuous learning and need for skills renewal which is critical in a high-change industry like technology development.

- Strong team collaboration skills- The ability to work well with teams

This article reflects the information shared by an industry professional during the course of the guest lecture series organized at MeritTrac.

Software Development JD - Business Application Development

2007-02-18T20:57:00.000+05:30

This blog provides insights into the fundamental roles that exist in the software development industry- specifically in the area of Business Application Development.

The business application software development industry adopts widely varying processes and people hierachies to manage software development. Despite these differences there are some common threads in the people hierarchies and people competencies required in the software development industry. Across companies, there is a need to understand the business problem, convert that problem into an architecture, convert the architecture into a solution, test the solution, and deploy the solution. Although each of these processes may change to some extent based on the programming models and tools being used, fundamentally there are some roles, which every process has in one form or another. Also these roles exist in a hierarchy. Below is a hierarchy representation of the most common roles.

ROLES AND HIERARCHY

Software Developer (Reports into Team Leader)
Team Leader (Reports into Project Manager/Delivery Manager)
Project Manager/ Delivery Manager

FUNCTIONS AND COMPETENCIES

This section summarizes the functions and competencies (knowledge, skills and abilities) that are critical to success in these roles. It then mentions the assessment methodology adopted while hiring for these roles.

Software Developer Role

Functions:

The role of a Software Developer is an entry-level role. 'Software Developer’ is a broad designation that applies to all junior roles in the IT hierarchy, right from a junior software engineer to a senior software engineer. A Software Developer is responsible for any or more of the following functions:

-- Coding - Writing code and low level analysis
-- Design - Low-level design documentation
-- Implementation - Installation of product at client location
-- Production Support and Enhancements - This involves providing support, maintenance and enhancements
-- Testing - Testing the application for functionality at each stage

Competencies:

Knowledge Of

-- Programming Languages(C/C++)
-- Software Engineering Concepts (Design, Coding, Documentation etc)
-- Databases
-- Debugging tools
-- Knowledge of Testing tools (like WinRunner, LoadRunner) – (Desirable, not mandatory)
-- Knowledge of Design tools – (Desirable, not mandatory)

Skills/Abilities:

-- Communication Skills

Reading-The ability to read and comprehend
Speaking - The ability to speak clearly
Listening – The ability to listen and comprehend

-- Academic Skills like:

Reasoning and Problem Solving ability-The ability to approach solutions from multiple perspectives
Mathematics-Computation and Application
Attention to Detail

-- Soft Skills like:

Team Work & Group Dynamics
Integrity
Initiative
Rule Consciousness-Complying with policies
Being Dependable and Reliable
Ability to Prioritize

Assessments For the Software Developer Role

Technical Expertise is assessed by means of a Test /Technical Interview
Soft Skills/Communication is assessed by means of an Interview
Other Soft Skills like Team Working/Group Dynamics are expected to be present in candidates and is not specifically assessed

Team Lead Role

Functions: A Team Leader is primarily responsible for the following functions for designing software solutions and managing teams.

Competencies:

Knowledge of

-- In-depth knowledge of Design, which includes Design Tools (like Rational Rose), Design Patterns, High and Low level Design (HLD and LLD)
-- Unified Modeling Language (UML)
-- Testing Fundamentals, Testing tools (like wind runner, loadrunner) and Test Scripting
-- Implementation which includes Configuration Management and Environment Set-Up
-- Advanced knowledge of Programming Languages (applicable to the Design environment)

Skills/Abilities:

-- Communication Skills :
Reading-The ability to read and comprehend
Speaking - The ability to speak clearly
Listening – The ability to listen and comprehend
Writing – The ability to convey ideas and information through emails in a business context

-- Academic Skills like Problem solving and Analytical ability

-- Soft Skills like:

Team Work & Group Dynamics
Integrity
Initiative
Rule Consciousness-Complying with policies
Being Dependable and Reliable
Ability to Prioritize
Learnability – Having a perspective of continuous learning and skills renewal which is critical in a high-change industry like software development

Assessments For the Team Lead Role

Technical Expertise(C++ Technical Expertise) is usually assessed by means of a Test /Technical Interview
Design Skills are usually assessed by means of an Interview
Soft Skills/Communication is generally assessed by means of an Interview
Other Soft Skills like Team Working/Group Dynamics are evaluated by means of an Interview

Project Manager Role

Functions: A Project Manager is responsible for successful delivery of a software project. This involves team management, project management and customer management.

Competencies:

Knowledge of:

-- Project Management including Risk Management
-- Deep technology in the technology area required for the project

Critical Skills /Abilities:

-- Project Management Skills
-- Communication Skills
-- Customer facing Skills – especially negotiation

Assessments For the Project Management Role

All competencies required are assessed by Interviews in those specific areas.
Some companies look for Project Management Institute Certifications to assess Project Management knowledge

The article is an extract of the information shared by an industry professional with 7 years of experience in the IT industry during the course of the MeritTrac Guest Lecture Series.

Introduction To Assessments - For Recruiters & Recruitment Managers

2007-02-18T20:34:00.000+05:30

Please click on the link below to download a Powerpoint Presentation that provides an introduction to Assessments specifically meant for Recruiters and Recruitment Managers. In case you have problems downloading you can right click the link and choose "Save Target As" on the menu.

Intro To Assessments(For Recruiters/Recruitment Managers)

What Do Retail Customers Want ?

2007-01-19T17:16:00.001+05:30

This Post is Authored by Gowri Subramanya (During migration the authors name could not be migrated)
In the rat race to stay ahead of other competitors, can retailers make it to the end by trying to compete on price alone? The answer being a departure from common perception is a No. If price is not the only driving force to buy, then what is that customers are looking for? The solution is an alchemy of price, quality and customer service.

The technical and human element of service is what inspires loyalty in customers. Both the product and the process are important:

Product-refers to the solution, system, response, resolution, deliverable or result. Whatever form the product takes, customers want it to work properly, to meet their needs, and to have quality. This is the technical element of service, and customers are not likely to be happy without it.

Process-refers to how customers feel they have been treated. Excelling in the technical element alone may not keep customers coming back unless you also attend to the process. In fact, for many customers, the process is more important than the product. This is the human element of service. The human element is exceedingly important in achieving a high level of customer satisfaction.

Retailers are awakening to the growing realization of providing quality customer service. Quality customer service is not about cost or packaging, it is about giving customers exactly what they need – however simple or complex their needs might be. This makes quality easy to define and not some abstract concept. Quality is measurable and objective – it is what the customer requires. If customers are given quality service they are satisfied, sometimes even delighted. They become loyal customers and encourage friends, family and colleagues to become customers as well. This adds up to success of the organization and a winning position in the market place, ahead of the competition.

A market research was conducted by Portakabin Builders, to find out what inspires loyalty in its customers. A customer satisfaction survey was carried out on vast majority of its customers. Questions were asked on all aspects of customer service and scores were recorded on a scale of 1-10 (where 1 is poor and 10 is excellent).

Most customers (53%) said the top factor was the experience. This related to how the customers felt they were treated during the process of buying. Value was the most important aspect to 34% of customers, while just 13% thought that product was vital - this is because they had come to expect top quality buildings from Portakabin. They were therefore most impressed by the level of personal interaction with the staff and with the overall level of support they received.

Similarly, a study was conducted by Colorado State University (2006), to understand the dynamics of good customer service. The study identified four variables namely; consideration, commitment, caring and communication that might indirectly influence customer discretionary behavior (CDB). CDB was defined as any behavior a customer voluntarily performs, beyond purchasing products or services, which may be helpful or harmful to an organization. Specifically, it was hypothesized that these variables would influence customer evaluations and mood, which, in turn, would influence CDBs. Observational and survey data was collected in two grocery stores. Structural equation modeling analyses indicated that courteous service had an indirect influence on customer commitment behaviors. Specifically, as cashiers displayed more courtesy, customers provided more positive evaluations of service and were ultimately more likely to recommend the store to friends and shop at the store even if other stores were closer.

What should recruiters be looking at while hiring front line sales teams in Retail ?

In the highly competitive Retail environment, the need to recruit more customer-sensitive service providers is being increasingly felt. The new-age buzzword is Customer Service Orientation.

Customer Service Orientation implies a desire to provide satisfactory service to customers. This means focusing efforts on discovering a customer’s needs and providing the best possible solution in a friendly, courteous and timely manner. The facets of Customer Service Orientation being:

1. Personalized Service Orientation- refers to an individual’s desire to communicate and develop a rapport in personal interactions with others. An individual who has a Personalized Service Orientation typically prefers:

· Taking an interest in people
· Listening Attentively
· Remaining Patient
· Socializing and seeking closeness to people

Why Personalized Service? Personalized Service is required to make a favorable impression, discover, understand the customer’s needs and build rapport with the customer.

2. Persuasive Service- refers to an individual’s desire to convince others of a certain product or idea and handle objections. An individual who has a Persuasive Service Orientation typically prefers:

· Convincing others of a certain viewpoint in order to gain co-operation and agreement for particular plans, ideas or products
· Acknowledging objections and can offset these against specific benefits
· Highlighting overriding advantages of product/service/solution
· Negotiating in order to reach a compromise in case of a disagreement

Why Persuasive Service? Welcoming objections and questions indicates that the customer has some interest in the product. Persuasive Service would be required to convince the customer to commit to some desired course of action, in order to move the sales forward.

3. Helpful Service- refers to an individual’s desire to respond to others needs by taking proactive steps to assist him/her. Such an individual would be naturally helpful towards customers, and has a desire to assist others. An individual who has a Helpful Service Orientation typically prefers:

· Going out of his way to satisfy others
· Deriving satisfaction out of helping others
· Offering extra help to others

Why Helpful Service? Helpful Service would be required to ensure that the customer is fully satisfied, and build trust so as to retain the customer.

The Bottom Line:
If the individual has the desire to provide good service to customers, it will be natural for the individual to do what is required to succeed. If the right customer service orientation is combined with proper sales and product knowledge training, the individual can be a top performer.

However, if an individual does not have the inclination to provide good service to customers, he or she will not find the job of a customer-facing position enjoyable but more of a chore. Even with proper training, people without the right service orientation will succeed only by forcing themselves to do the job and people with this amount of drive, desire, and discipline are rare.

In the end, it may be the service - not just the price - that dictates whether or not customers can be retained for the long term. Good customer service begins and ends with treating customers the way you would like to be treated yourself.

Theories of Intelligence & MeritTrac Tests

2006-12-22T21:07:00.002+05:30

This Post is Authored by Chakradhar (During migration the authors name could not be migrated)

Intelligence is a general cognitive skill. It is the mental capacity to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend ideas, comprehend language and learn. The theories on measuring intelligence have evolved over a period of time.

In 1904 an English psychologist, Charles Spearman, proposed that intellectual abilities comprise two factors. The first one is general ability or common ability known as ‘g’ factor and the second is a group of specific abilities known as ‘s’ factor. ‘g’ factor is an inborn ability that is beyond content and facts. Whereas ‘s’ factor is acquired from the environment.

In the 1980s, Robert.J.Sternberg, presented Spearman’s theory in a more comprehensive way by basing his theory on relationship between intelligence and experience, the external world and the internal world of an individual and he called this the Triarchic Theory which has three facets. The three facets being

Ø Analytical (Componential)- ability which measures academic problem solving skills
Ø Creative (Experimental) – ability that allows individuals to think creatively and adjust creatively and effectively to new situations,
Ø Practical (Contextual) – relates to people’s ability to adapt to, select, and shape their real-world environment.

Howard Gardner put forth a new and different view of the human intellect, through the theory of multiple intelligences. His theory incorporates both ‘g’ and ‘s’ factors proposed by Spearman. The multiple intelligence theory has eight constructs.

Ø Visual/Spatial – Ability to visualize an object and create mental images, deals with visual arts, navigation, architecture and certain games like chess.

Ø Verbal/Linguistic – Ability to listen, speak, read and write.

Ø Musical/Rhythmic – Ability to recognize tonal patterns, rhythm and beat, it includes sensitivity to environmental sounds, the human voice and musical instruments.

Ø Logical/Mathematical – Ability deals with how well a person can use logic, numbers and relationships, also involves ability to recognize patterns, to work with geometric shapes and make logical connections between pieces of information.

Ø Bodily/Kinesthetic – related to physical movement and the knowledge of the body and how it functions. Interpersonal – Ability to communicate with others and to have empathy for their feelings and beliefs.

Ø Interpersonal intelligence involves understanding others and acting on that understanding .

Ø Intrapersonal - knowing self, emotional responses and self-reflection.

MeritTrac’s Abilities tests are based on Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences. These tests assess the candidate's Logical/Analytical Ability and Mathematical/ Quantitative Ability. Both Logical/Analytical and Numerical Ability assess the ‘g’ factor or the inborn abilities. Mathematical/Quantitative Ability assesses the ‘s’ factor or basic knowledge along with higher levels of mathematics.

Case Study - Benefits of Testing Lateral Hires in the IT Industry

2006-12-06T16:12:00.000+05:30

A large IT development center in India caters to one of the world’s largest financial institutions and credit card issuers. The technology team builds and supports the software on which the financial institution conducts millions of transactions each day. Identifying, hiring and retaining the right talent for this technology development center is no mean task.

The company employed MeritTrac Services to assess candidates with 2 – 4 years of experience in software development. MeritTrac Services, India’s largest skills assessments company designs and delivers tests to assess abilities, skills and knowledge for different job roles. The IT Tests are MeritTrac’s offering for assessing candidates with work experience for technology roles.

Between March and May 2006 MeritTrac administered IT Tests on 852 candidates out of which 581 candidates passed the test and were interviewed. The IT Tests recommended for this customer included a range of technology tests – Java Programming, Mainframes, Data warehousing, AS400, VB Programming and Oracle Programming. By using the IT Tests for hiring experienced candidates the company was able to

· Identify Right Fit candidates
· Reduce Interview Calendar Time
· Reduce Interview Time
· Reduce Interview Costs

Identifying Right Fit Candidates

On average, 64 % of all candidates who passed the IT Test also passed the customers technical interview indicating the high degree of accuracy with which the Test could predict Interviewers’ expectations from candidates. Out of 581 candidates who passed the test, 374 passed the technical interview also.

The IT Test helped in accurately identifying the right fit candidates.

Reduction In Interview Calendar Days

While the company could dedicate 3 interviewers for interviewing at any point in time at remote locations, the IT Test was administered to 50 people at one time on average. This reduced the calendar time for the selection process substantially.

The calendar days for interviewing was reduced by 24 %. It would have taken the company 24 calendar days to complete the selection process without the IT Test. It took the company calendar 18.13 days to complete the selection process by using the IT Test.
Interview Time Reduction

The company reduced interviewing time by 31% by using the IT Test. By using the IT Test the company was able to short list 581 candidates and interview them alone instead of meeting all 852 candidates who applied. This resulted in reducing interview time from 568 hours to 389 hours.

Interview Cost Reduction

The company reduced the cost of Interviewing by 9 % by using the IT Test. Since the IT Test short listed a smaller set of right fit candidates the number of interviewers used and the corresponding salary, travel and accommodation costs that the company would have other wise incurred was reduced.

By using the IT test the customer was able to get right fit candidates with reduced calendar time, reduced interview time and reduced costs. In addition to this the company gained significantly from having an easily scalable online test delivery system where tests were delivered online and scores and candidate details were accessible to the company anytime, anywhere through an online test application.

Summary of Savings by using IT Tests for Lateral Hiring

Identifying Right Fit Candidates               64% Prediction Rate
Interview Calendar Days                       24% Reduction in Interview Calendar Days
Interviewing Time                                31% Reduction in Interviewing Time
Interview Cost                                  9% reduction in Interview Cost
In addition to this, there are intangible benefits accrued by using the IT Tests

Ø Helps in measuring source effectiveness and source quality
Ø Helps to recruit from multiple cities at the same time
Ø Helps in ensuring good candidate experience in the entire recruitment process
Ø Helps in maximizing conversion from specific talent pools

For a well formatted document with tables and calculations please download the attachment from Laterals - Case Study ver 1.1.doc.

Pre-Recruitment Test: The Buzzword

2006-12-05T19:19:00.000+05:30

On a bright sunny morning, sometime in the ‘80s an engineer who had just passed out of college went to attend an interview. One of the questions that the interview panel asked was, “How many steps did you have to step on, while coming up to the interview room?”

Hey, does it sound like you have heard it before? Maybe!

And you know what, another question was, “Why is it that some animals have tails while some others don’t?”

Its an entirely different matter altogether that a fresher passing out of college today would probably respond to the first question, saying, “As many steps as I would have to step on when I climb down!” and might as well respond to the second question, saying, “Just because some people know what they are asking while some others don’t!”

Several questions administered in written tests a few years ago used to be unrelated to job requirements, and used to be picked up from various books on brain teasers or puzzles, which probably had little or no relevance to the set of Knowledge, Skills and Abilities required for performing on the job.

Also, HR heads had to depend on subjective evaluation of candidates for selection. The perception of most of the candidates, including a segment of the HR personnel themselves was that a majority of the steps involved in the Selection process are meant for filtering out people, rather than selecting the right candidate.

Things have changed a lot today, and with that, the perceptions also have changed. There has been a conscious effort by the HR community in the country to ensure that the selection process really helps them in identifying the right candidate for the job.

If we look at the possible outcomes of any Selection Process, there are usually four possibilities:

a. Selecting the Right Candidate
b. Rejecting the Right Candidate
c. Selecting the Wrong Candidate
d. Rejecting the Wrong Candidate

And of course, it is the options “a” and “d” that are the desirable outcomes. Rejecting the right candidate is far worse than selecting a wrong candidate, because you have the option of getting rid of the wrong candidate any point of time, but you don’t have the option of getting back onboard the right candidate, once you have rejected.

So, being able to reliably assess the candidates’ suitability for the position / job is the dire need of the hour, which has been widely accepted through out the industry.

Its been found that often, when recruitment is done for the position of Police Constables, there are a lot of Postgraduates also who apply for the position, though the required educational qualification is only graduation. And, earlier, the preference used to be to select the Postgraduates given an opportunity, with the belief that you are getting a better qualified person for the job. But, you know what, over a period of time, it has been found that most of the postgraduates who were selected ultimately moved on to some other jobs, because they had better options.

So, recruitment and selection is not about getting the highest qualified person for the job, but zeroing in on the most “appropriate” person for the job!

It is similar to how we make a buying decision when we want to get a new mobile. If just plain talking is what you plan to do over the mobile, does it really make sense getting a mobile with all the latest features like video camera, GPRS, Blue Tooth, etc? Wouldn’t the basic model suffice? Ah, yes, if you have the need, you have to obviously go for a higher end model.

Likewise, we need to recruit and select through the use of a reliable assessment process, that would help us to ensure that we select the appropriate set of candidates, and not get tempted to select the highest qualified set or the lesser able ones.

But, how do we ensure that this assessment is reliable? Is there a way out? Is there a tested and proven approach that would makes our job as Recruitment professionals easier?

“Oh, yes!” is the answer that an expert in the field of assessments would give.

In the next blog, I will be discussing how can make our recruitment and selection processes more effective and efficient.

SMS for Recruitment

2006-11-21T00:49:00.000+05:30

Using bulk SMS applications can dramatically improve the productivity of a recruitment team. Here is how ...

Email & Phone Calls

Recruitment teams usually spend a substantial amount of time making calls and sending emails. For instance ...

- Phone calls are made and emails are sent to invite candidates to attend a Test or Interview

- Phone calls are made to convey the results of a selection process to candidates.

- Emails are sent to stay in touch with offered-and-not-joined-yet candidates. In industry parlance this is called keeping "potential joinees warm"

It is possible to convey messages to candidates faster, cheaper and more reliably by using a bulk SMS application. These applications also support delivery receipts and return SMSes.

How SMS Can Help

A good bulk SMS application can convey messages to several candidates at once and receive delivery receipts. It can also recieve responses from candidates sent via SMS and register these responses. Here is how it works ...

- You are a recruiter who wants to schedule interviews for a 100 candidates

- You list out the names and mobile numbers of the 100 candidates in an Excel sheet.

- You then write down the time and venue address for each of the candidates. You also add a line saying "Please confirm your participation by replying "Yes".

- You upload the excel sheet onto a bulk SMS application

- The bulk SMS application SMSes the messages to the 100 applicants and shows you the delivery receipts for the SMSes that have been successfully sent

- Candidates who recieve the SMSes send back SMSes to confirm their participation. You run a report off the bulk SMS application and take stock of how many SMS confirmations you have got.

- For those for whom confirmations have not come up, you make phone calls.

Clearly the advantages in using a bulk SMS application are that in the span of an hour its possible to SMS upto a 1000 applicants and recieve delivery receipts. And in 2 -3 hours time its possible to to recieve about 600 to 700 confirmations. A recruiter can then choose to call the remaining 300 or so applicants and work to get confirmations. This substantially reduces the amount of time recruiters spend on the phone scheduling candidates. The other benefit is also that SMS has a better chance of reaching the job applicant compared to phone calls or emails. Since most people are in meetings during the day, they would not answer a phone call. Also, most people check their personal email ids once a day or once in two days. But they certainly check SMSes all the time. And on average, 80% to 90% of people with work experience own mobile phones.

Other Details

Several bulk SMS applications are available in the market. I have used the application from valuefirst (www.valuefirst.com). I prefer this application since it has a User Interface that is similar to Outlook and is extremely easy to use. Bulk SMS applications usually cost about Rs 10,000 to Rs 25,000 depending on features. In addition to this there is an SMS cost which is usually Rs 1 for sending and Rs 2 for receiviing though these vary widely depending on the plan chosen.

The Future

One of the emerging areas where SMS will be used in Recruitment is in Ad response. Candidates today read a Job Ad in the newspaper (Times of India Ascent) note down the email address or URL where they have to apply, go to office and sometimes forget about it. Others remember but send their CVs 3 -4 days after they have seen the Job Ad. Response to Job Ads is rarely instantaneous but using SMS it can be made instantaneous.

Lets assume the Job Ad in the paper has a Job portal code ... for instance a Naukri code and a Monster code. All you have to do is send your CV identification number to the Naukri code or the Monster code and Naukri or Monster could forward your CV from their portal to the email id mentioned in the Job Ad. This can enable job applicants to apply as soon as they see the Job Ad which makes the recruitment process more efficient.

How Do You Check If A Test Is Working?

2006-10-04T23:42:00.000+05:30

Several companies use a Test while assessing job applicants. Considering the popularity of Tests in assessing job applicants its important to know how to check if a Test is working. Here are some guidelines ...

1. Does the Job Description Need the Test?

This discussion assumes that while choosing to use the Test, a study of the Job Description was done and the Test was chosen since it measures a required competence. In case this was not done, its a good idea to do this. Check if the Test measures a competence mentioned in the Job Description. For instance you could use a C Programming Test and a Spoken English Test if the Job Description says "Requires strong C Programming Skills and excellent spoken communication skills". This is a step that has to be done while choosing a Test.

2. Job roles are Alive, Job Descriptions are Not!

Assuming the Test has been chosen after looking at the Job Description, its important to revisit the Job Description from time to time. Job roles are alive ... they grow with time, they expand, they change, they require newer competencies. Job roles change just as business realities change. But most documented Job Descriptions are rarely revisited. So its a good idea to revist the documented Job Description from time to time to see if the Job Description accurately reflects the job. For instance a Job Description that says "requires strong Visual Basic skills" may change to "requires strong ASP.net skills" since customers have migrated to a newer technology. In such a case using Visual Basic Test for the job role would be pointless. And the Test would certainly not work.

3. Compare Against Another Measure

Assuming point 1 and point 2 are addressed, the best way to check if a Test is working for you is to compare against another measure. The other measure could be a Technology Interview if the Test was technology Test or could be a communication skill check by a communications specialist if the Test is a communications Test. For instance, if you are adminstering a C Programming Test on job applicants then check

Measure A) How many of the job applicants who pass the Test also pass the Technology Interview your team is conducting? (It should be a minimum of 60%)

Measure B) How many of the job applicants who fail the Test also fail the Technology Interview your team is conducting? (It shoul be a minimum of 80%)

Keep in mind that ideally, both Measure A and Measure B should be 100%. This indicates that you have a perfect test that knows EXACTLY what your Technology Interviewers are looking for. But 100% is almost never achievable. This is because of a variety of reasons

- All Interviewers do not ask the same questions
- All Interviewers do not rate consistently - one interviewer might pass what another interviewer fails
- An Interviewer is influenced by external factors - for instance a job applicant's poor communication skills or body language might influence the interviewer's judgement of the job applicants C Programming skill

Factoring for these measurement errors, a 60% on A and 80% on B is good. Its a good practice to check these measures month on month to ensure that the Tests are working. Many times, a change in the job role causes Interviewers to ask different questions which will lead to very low percentages on Measure A and Measure B. This clearly points to a change in job role or a problem with the Test.

4. The Selection Criteria

The effectiveness of a Test is completely dependent on the Selection Criteria - the minimum score on the Test that you consider appropriate for the job. Measure A and Measure B hinge completely on the Selection Criteria. You can be cautious and set the selection criteria high but then you end up rejecting job applicants who may fit the role. You can be optimistic and keep the selection criteria low but then you end up interviewing several job applicants who dont fit the role. The Selection Criteria has to be optimised - fixed at a level where both Measure A and Measure B are maximized. Your Test will not work if you dont have the optimal Selection Criteria.

These steps can help in ensuring that Tests you are using are working.

How To Buy Tests?

2006-09-23T23:47:00.000+05:30

(The US Department of Labor has published an excellent guide for employers buying tests. Accessible at

http://www.ipmaac.org/files/ONetasmtguide.pdf#search=%22US%20Department%20of%20Labor%20Assessment%20%22.

But the guide is long and technical and does not quote actual examples. Here is a simpler interpretation. )

Step 1: Ensure the Test is relevant to the job?

If you are buying a Test to test job applicants, establish that the Test measures a skill or ability required for the job.

To establish whether a Tests measures a required skill or ability, study the Job Description and list out the skills and abilities listed in the Job Description. Then read the Test documentation to what skills and abilities the Test measures. The Test should be chosen ONLY if the skill or ability it measures is listed in the Job Description. The assumption here is that the Job Description is well written. If this is not the case then a Job Analysis will have to be conducted which is covered in a seperate section on Job Analysis.

Step 2: Ask the Test publisher to explain sections of the Test Manual

Tests publishers are required to publish a Test Manual. This is a document that has sections on what the test measures, how it was created, who is the appropriate audience for this test, what are the scoring patterns of test takers with different educational or work backgrounds, what is the reliability of the test and what is the validity of the test. Ask the test publisher to present the information in the Test Manual in a conversation or in a PPT and insist on simple language, real world examples and the business impact of the information provided. Some of the things to watch out for

- What does the Test measure - a Test of spoken English skills for instance, can measure grammar or accent or fluency or articulation or rate of speech etc. Its very important to know if the test measures only grammar or only accent or both etc. This affects Step 1 - is the test relevant to the job. For instance, choosing a spoken English test that does not measure accent may be disastrous for a voice BPO where employees are expected to interact with international customers through the work day.

- How was it created - there are several technical details that a Test publisher has to keep in mind while creating tests. In general a good Test publisher creates Tests against defined competencies (skills or abilities), uses experts in the subject that is being tested, uses actual job samples to create questions in the test and runs trials before releasing a Test.

- Who is the audience for the Test - this defines whether the test was created for specific audiences based on parameters such as education, geography, age, job context etc. For instance a C Programming Test created for people passing out of Engineering college will be different from that created for Tech Architects at a large software company. As the Test buyer, ensure that the Test is appropriate for the audience you are hiring.

- Scoring patterns - this defines the historical performance of Test takers on this test. This is critical to define the selection criteria or cut off mark on the Test. You can refer to the scoring patterns to make sense of the the score that a Test taker obtains on the Test. For instance, if a job applicant scores 34% on the C Programming Test it is hard to draw any conclusion from it. But if you knew that 90% of all test takers have scored 33% or less on the Test it tells us that this job applicant is probably good at C Programming. A better indicator would be if we said 90% of all software programmers from 5 of the best software companies scored less than 33% on this Test, it would tell us that the test taker is certainly a very good C Programmer.

- Reliability - this is a measure of whether the test is consistent. If you used a weighing scale to weigh yourself, you would expect it to show the same weight if you measured yourself 5 times in a row during a single day (assuming you dont play football!). Similarly, a Test that measures competence is expected to be consistent. While most Tests cannot be as consistent as a weighing scale, it is expected to be reasonably consistent. Read the reliability measure reported in the Test Manual and ask the Test publisher to explain what it means. Ask the Test publisher to explain to you why the reliability measure is acceptable. A reliability coefficient of 0.7 or above is considering acceptable though this the acceptable range varies widely depending on the test and the circumstances in which it is adminstered. A simple rule of thumb is - reliability is higher if the test is longer. And any Test trade's off reliability with time since we cant expect Test Takers to take an 8 hour Test.

Step 3: Insist on a Trial Run

While it is possible to prove through Test Manuals that a Test is appropriate for your context, it is always best to do a trial run of the Test by adminstering it on people currently in the job role that you are hiring for and analyzing their performance. This is owing to the fact that a Test is ultimately as good as the questions in it. For instance, an Analytical Ability Test that has been administered on 20,000 fresh Engineers across the country may seem to be appropriate for your use considering the track record of the Test. But if your company hires only IITs and if the 20,000 engineers on whom it has been adminstered in the past are not from IITs you may have a situation where all the IITians score 100% on the Test. Which would embarass you on the IIT campus and more importantly would make it hard to decide which candidates you want to interview since the scores are all the same. Which is why a Trial Run is critical.

Step 4: Discuss and understand Test Adminstration

A Test works only when it is adminstered right. All Tests have clear instructions on how they have to be adminstered. Tests have to be adminstered with supervision (with rare exceptions) to ensure there is no copying, the instructions should be unambiguous and unbiased. For instance, if you are adminstering a C Programming Test created for an Indian audience in China its important to understand that instructions that are clear to Indian test taker may or may not be clear to Chinese test takers. Also test adminstrators have to be trained so they adminster tests in the right way. A poorly adminstered test returns unreliable scores.

Step 5: Lastly, ask for several sets of Question Papers

Test takers would do anything to do better on a Test. Its important to have enough sets of equivalent question papers to ensure that the Tests are not public information. Ask the Test publisher how many questions they have in the question bank and how they can generate equivalent sets.

For a more technical discussion on buying Tests refer to http://www.ipmaac.org/files/ONetasmtguide.pdf#search=%22US%20Department%20of%20Labor%20Assessment%20%22

Happy buying!

AC Buses to Retain Tech Employees

2006-09-12T08:43:00.000+05:30

IT companies have high employee attrition rates. And they have tried every HR practice in the book to keep attrition under control. Yet there is one thing they have not offered employees as a retention tool.

Drive down Silk Board Junction to Electronics City in Bangalore - one of the busiest traffic stretches - and you see several IT company buses ferrying employees to work. These buses offer the same levels of comfort as Bangalore's local transport buses and the commute is tiring and frustrating. Why dont companies provide air conditioned buses for employees instead of regular buses? It can make a big difference in employee satisfaction levels.

AC buses ensure employees are ferried to and from work in comfort. They dont have to hear blaring horns or noisy vehicles. On hot days they won't sweat in the heat. When employees reach office they would be fresh and ready for the day. The cost of AC buses is far more than regular buses. But the advantages companies will gain are several.

The biggest advantage companies providing an AC bus service would have is that it will be seen as a differentiator by employees. When all else matches - job role, office location, employee perks - employees might choose not to make the shift to another company since they get to go to work in an AC bus as against a regular bus. Consider the impact it can have when employees in an AC bus wave to rival company employees traveling in a non-AC bus on a hot summer afternoon!

The other advantages could be the fact that there are employees commuting in a noise free environment. The commute time could be used for training. Organization wide training courses on communication skills or presentation skills are ideally suited for delivery in an AC bus using LCD displays. Also, HR teams could use the commute to interact with employees. Tax consultants can have tax return forms filled out on the bus. Financial advisors can offer investment advice. Others who want to popularize their services with employees can use the commute to do so. Also with charging points in place, employees can even work on their laptops. Considering the advantages the cost may make the option worth exploring.

Commuting in the AC buses operated by the BMTC has shown that commuting can be a pleasurable experience. Is this the next employee perk?

Where do we start!

2006-08-22T09:59:00.000+05:30

We will organize this blog around the pre recruitments assessments and training assessments. We will also cover the recruitment process - putting out Ads, receving CVs, screening CVs, calling up job applicants, testing them, interviewing them, making offers and following up with job applicants to see if they will join.