London (UK), February 2010 - The ability to deliver a single assessment to different types of devices and in multiple languages and contexts - plus improved accessibility and scalability - are among the improvements introduced in version 5 of the Questionmark™ Perception™ assessment-management system.
Questionmark Perception version 5 makes it easier to deploy surveys, quizzes, tests, and exams to an increasingly mobile, global, and diverse audience. A single assessment can be delivered to laptops, desktops, smart phones, and a wide range of other devices. The system auto-senses each device and its browser. Then the content auto-sizes to ensure the assessment appears in the right format. "Screen furniture" - the buttons and other graphics incorporated in assessments-”is automatically resized to fit each different screen size.
This makes it easier than ever to create learning and assessment mashups by embedding quizzes or surveys within wikis, blogs, web pages, portals such Microsoft SharePoint, and social networks to provide formative assessments or gather opinions during learning activities.
"Our customers deliver tests, quizzes, and surveys to people who work and learn in many different environments. They shouldn't have to worry about technical details like resizing their assessment for each device or whether it's accessible to someone who is partially sighted", comments Questionmark CEO Eric Shepherd. "The new auto-sensing and auto-sizing capabilities, multilingual user interfaces, and the latest accessibility features allow subject- matter experts to author an assessment once and then confidently deliver it to hundreds or even millions of people securely via internet portals, social media sites, web pages, iFrames, wikis, blogs, and even paper."
As organisations are increasingly delivering assessments on-screen, legal and ethical issues are compelling them to better accommodate the needs of participants with disabilities. Questionmark's new delivery platform is optimised to work with assistive technologies such as screen readers and alternative pointing devices and includes standard features within test delivery templates such as text sizing and contrast controls.
These and other improvements will help organisations comply with Web accessibility standards such as those described in Section 508 Web accessibility standards in the United States and the International web Accessibility Initiative Guidelines (WCAG) of the World Wide Web Consortium (WC3).
Perception also streamlines processes for test publishers, businesses, and other organisations that need to deliver assessments in multiple languages. Using Questionmark's Translation Management System, organisations can now more easily deliver localised content to multinational workforces. Translations can be conducted on the fly within a new browser-based tool in Perception, or items and assessments can be exported for translation by a third-party application or vendor. Once translated, the assessments remain connected to their base-language counterparts for efficient management of subsequent edits and reporting.
