There have been no changes to personnel, location, or type of services we offer. We did reverse the orientation of the desks in the Testing Room to face the back of the room instead of facing the front. The reasons for making this change were to reduce distractions and to help cut down on cheating. With the desks facing the front of the room, students taking tests would see people entering and leaving the room, plus through the glass they could see the front door of the LRC building and be distracted by people constantly entering and leaving the building. Students could also watch the testing center staff and know when they were busy and were not able to watch. Facing the back of the room they do not know what the staff are doing and must turn around to look. This should discourage academic dishonesty. Security cameras in the testing room were upgraded to 360-degree cameras with microphones to be able to see a more complete view of the room. Prior to that there were many blind spots where someone could cheat and not have visual proof. We also purchased a 24-bin parts rack to use for cell phones instead of the bags that we previously used. This change was to help increase sanitation. With the plastic bins, we can hold the bin out and let the student put his/her cell phone in without us touching it and hold it out for them to take the phone/smart watch out when they have finished testing. The bin can then be easily sprayed and wiped out to disinfect.

The Testing Center is a walk-in service. A student needing to take a test just needs to show a picture ID when arriving at the testing center to verify his/her identity. Most students are told by their instructors to go to the Testing Center. The Testing Center is listed in the course syllabus with a link to the Testing Center webpage which gives details and hours. There is a paragraph in the college catalogue about the Testing Center and we are listed on a number of other college proctor lists such as the North Carolina proctor system. In addition, when potential new students are given a campus tour, they are brought by the Testing Center to know where to go for a proctored test.

Goals Summary

The main goal of the Testing Center is always student success. Creating a quiet, clean environment with as few distractions as possible while maintaining academic integrity. Finding ways to improve student success is an ongoing, never ending goal that can be different for each individual student. Changing the orientation of the desks in the Testing Room has helped reduce distractions and helped encourage honesty. Bins to store cell phones and improved sanitation of desks after each use give a very clean and worry-free environment for testing.

Significant strides have been made in reducing distractions, making sure the testing room is sanitized, and in new and more efficient ways of sending test information to proctors. While improvement has been made, distractions are still something to work on. A reduction in placement testing will help improve distractions due to the fact that staff must enter the testing room and help potential students taking placement tests get into the test. This requires some talking and movement that distracts other students. Also, with some new technologies available to instructors, a reduction in the number of tests being given in the Testing Center (especially during mid-terms and finals) would greatly improve distractions. A crowded room with students constantly entering and leaving works against student success.

As always, we are constantly looking for ways to improve student success. We will look at the process for instructors to send us testing information to see if there is a way to improve it. The process at present is simple. All the instructor has to do is email us the information. Perhaps contacting new instructors and providing information on how to send us test information would be helpful.

There are no changes expected in this service area.