When the University of Pittsburgh Testing Center opened its doors in May 2014, it symbolized a new era of academic testing for Pitt. The Center combined the services and functions of three unique testing centers on campus to form a single, multi-faceted location for Pitt students, faculty, and the external Pittsburgh community. The process of merging three testing centers into one had successes, headaches, triumphs, and the occasional 'Plan B.' Please join us for a discussion about our strategy, stakeholder buy-in, and our lessons learned from creating one testing center out of three.

Conference Track: Test Center Management and Staff Training

Let's face it. Work in our offices may tend to pull us in thousands of different directions. Budgets may not allow the hiring of another staff to ease the burden. What can be done? Two universities have found the untapped resource of student employment wields untold power and versatility. From a private organization breaking the boundaries of testing to a state organization providing opportunities for students to grow as well as provide a stabling influence in-house, we bring you a discussion-based platform to review how student employment can be utilized to increase your throughput, expand productivity, and provide quality experience for the next generation of professionals.

Conference Track: Test Center Management and Staff Training

Tight budgets are a reality in education today. Test centers are continually being asked to do more with less and find creative solutions to new challenges every day. This session will focus on getting the most from ACCUPLACER units, finding low-cost security solutions, using work-study students, and boosting revenue to help fund more staff. Come prepared to share your own ideas and thoughts.

Conference Track: Test Center Management and Staff Training

With the increased focus on accountability in higher education, "Culture of Evidence" is a phrase that many who work in student support offices are hearing these days. Units are being asked to show proof that their existence on campus is directly contributing to student success. As a result, testing offices are increasingly asked to provide data that goes further than usage and satisfaction, focusing instead on how the services offered support student success and learning, and how the mission of the office supports institutional priorities. During the 2014-15 academic year, the Division of Student Affairs at the University of Cincinnati began a centralized approach to planning and assessment, asking offices to align each of their programs and services with divisional strategic priorities and lay out their plans for determining the student impact of the work that they do.

During this session, the Director of Assessment and Testing Services Manager will discuss how the Testing Services Office became a leader in creating the Culture of Evidence for the division and present our plan for showing not only what we are doing but also why we are doing it and how we know it's working by using data. Attendees will learn how to write program and learning goals around their services, identify ways to collect student success data, and receive resources to take home to help them in planning their own Culture of Evidence.

Conference Track: Test Center Management and Staff Training

College Testing Services has aligned itself with the College Strategic Goals of Student Success, Attainment, and Workforce Development. Creating partnerships with College Academic Programs, Workforce Development Initiatives, and Community-based Programs has allowed the College Testing Services to leverage its expertise and increase the value and need for its services campus wide.

College Testing Services successfully positioned itself as an internal consultant to the College for all testing-related service needs by providing customized testing experiences based on program, faculty, partner, candidate and student need. It created added value through ease of access, improved services, building campus links, and success stories and metrics.

Conference Track: Test Center Management and Staff Training

For many of us, our offices could not run without our student workers, both undergraduate and graduate. They work so hard for us, so what can we do to help them as well? That is where managing and mentoring comes in! Managing student employees can be a unique and gratifying experience as young workers develop into productive members of society. It can also be the most harrowing and challenging job. The Online Testing Center at Boise State University and the University of Southern California have the unique perspective of having a mostly student employee staff to help run their offices.

Join us in the exploration of how to "best" manage student employees to help them learn and grow as well as maintain professionalism by looking through a lens of developmental theory and mentoring theory and secure testing standards in the world of assessment. Suggestions and examples will be given such as different tasks and check-ins that can be done with students to make their time at work more meaningful and help with success in the classroom, including events to have and self-care strategies.

Conference Track: Test Center Management and Staff Training

Are you tired of training binders? Is it hard to keep up with all of your training materials? Would you like to standardize your training methods and assess your staff's progress? If you answered "yes" to all of these questions, this session is for you. This presentation will demonstrate the steps taken by the WKU Distance Learning Testing Centers to develop a standardized training program and the methods we use to assess the trainee's progress. Additionally we will discuss the benefits of the program and its limitations.

Conference Track: Test Center Management and Staff Training