We try to make this affordable and effective. The better decisions the colleges can make, the more money they can save and the more effectively they can run their colleges, the better service they can give their students. In the higher education market, every school is like a designer chain. Everyone has their different niche, and we want to allow colleges to establish their own criteria that they want to measure because we are a fully cutomizable program that allows us to do that. As schools look towards better integration of existing databases and are held more accountable by legislators, accreditors or even customers, including parents of students and students themselves, all of this is merely peripheral to their central focus.
Student testing is perhaps the most familiar and important of assessments.
To meet the demand for what is most widespread and currently practical, optical scanner technology continues to be developed and improved upon. The most cost-effective method at least in the short term is still going to be paper and pencil. To illustrate his point, Lutz noted that Educational Testing Services, a competitor and another major testing company, has begun to develop computer-based testing, which is more expensive, but nets no further profits. Another issue in computer-delivered assessment tests is security. So while Scholastic Aptitude Tests, medical and law exams, competencies and surveys continue to be delivered with a number two and a human monitor's instructions to fill in the bubble completely, schools are beginning to contract with a number of different testing and computer systems companies and major publishing houses as well.