The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals

Governed by Chartered Status, the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals (CIPP) is responsible for ensuring high quality standards within the payroll profession. The CIPP qualification and certification programmes require candidates to sit one or more formal exams. Up to this point, these exams have been paper-based and require manual marking and scoring, which is a labour-intensive process. There is high demand for these qualifications and certificates, not only in the UK but also in other countries and, to date, it has been difficult not only to manage exams in these remote locations but also to scale the overall examination process in a cost effective and secure manner.

The CIPP has recently utilised TestReach’s comprehensive test authoring capabilities to roll out the exams to far reaching centres and ensure that they are completed securely. The new online exam completely replaces the paper-based equivalent and has also changed to a format that allows for 80% of the paper to be scored with the markers intervention. For some of the numerate questions, the calculations have been broken down using TestReach’s extensive question types, so that points can be auto-awarded for both the calculation and the answer itself.

Using TestReach to automate the exam process has helped the CIPP to improve its examination process. “There is a huge reduction in the amount of administration,” said Mike Aldous, Education Support & Development Specialist at the CIPP. “For instance, candidates can now take this exam completely online, so we don’t have to worry about secure transport of the exam papers or the logistics of manually correcting paper-based answers. It really is a big step forward for us.” The CIPP’s qualifications, using remote invigilation as an exam delivery model, have been accredited by Ofqual. The Certificate in Pensions Administration is Ofqual QCF level 3. The CIPP can now quickly and easily roll out exams in a format that is in line with candidates’ expectations. “Our members are business professionals, who are working on computers on a daily basis”, continued Mike, “it makes sense for them to be able to use a keyboard as opposed to having to write answers on paper. It’s just not the way things are done anymore.” There is also huge flexibility associated with running the exam online and everything can be quickly and easily scaled into new outlying parts of the UK and beyond. “We are excited about the potential that TestReach provides,” added Mike, “and are looking to use the solution to develop and further automate more of our exams into the future.”

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