Hi, FYI, Debra Johnson recently sent this out to the folks who give our EmComm course exams in the Field. These procedures needed to be tightened up because we all believed that there is some amount of abuse and outright cheating on these exams. 73, Harold ________________________________ From: Johnson, Debra, K1DMJ Sent: Monday, December 10, 2007 9:24 AM To: Johnson, Debra, K1DMJ Cc: Davis, Jennifer Subject: Changes for Field Emergency Communications exams Greetings! We've been reviewing the forms and procedures involved with the administration of Emergency Communications courses and exams given in the field and have identified some areas where changes and updates are needed. So here are some of the results of our housecleaning. New test booklets are being released for field tests of all 3 levels of the Emergency Communications courses. These new tests must be used for any exams given after January 1, 2008. In late December, we will be mailing exam materials including the new test booklets to all CEs who have registered an exam session during January. If you are planning an exam session after January, please request the new exam materials at least 2 weeks in advance of the scheduled date so we can supply them to you. As most of you are aware, we have not been charging the classroom fees ($20 for members, $50 for non-members) for field instruction and exams stated on the Activity Report form for quite a while. We have revised that form to eliminate those fees. We've also eliminated the "Activity Registration for Individuals" form. It will no longer be necessary as all of the information captured on this form will be captured on the revised Student Registration/Answer Sheet form. Other changes: The instructions for administration of field exams have been revised and include a requirement that examiners insure that open books and notes are not permitted during exams. Effective January 1, the exam fee will be increased to $14, to be consistent with VE test fees and to help offset the significant handling costs we incur to manage the records, provide materials for field exams, and print and mail certificates and ID cards. As with VE fees, examiners may retain up to $6 of this fee to offset costs of delivering the exam. We are in process of revising the ARRL Web pages that support the Continuing Education Program. This will occur over time, so there may be some links that are disabled in the process of rearranging the pages and revising the content. One new page that is available for the use of field examiners is a CE Resource Page. The link is: www.arrl.org/cep/fieldexams. On this page you will find a listing of the form numbers of current test booklets, links for all other forms needed to conduct an exam session, guidelines for exam sessions and any other information related to ARECC field exams. We will be building a similar page for field instructors, and will post instructional resources that have been shared by other CIs there. I hope you will welcome these changes. 73, Debra Debra Johnson, K1DMJ Education Services Manager ARRL, the National Association for Amateur Radio 225 Main Street Newington, CT 06111-1494 (860) 594-0296 Fax: (860) 594-0259 djohnson@arrl.org <mailto:djohnson@arrl.org> WJ1B Again: Since we sent this out, two issues have been raised: 1. Why does the field test need to be closed book while the on-line course in open book? Here's Debra's response: The on-line version of the course requires completion of activities and dialog with a mentor. There are unit tests that reinforce the material that needs to be completed after each learning unit which expose the student to all of the possible exam questions. This assures that the student has engaged with the content of the course even though he or she may take the final assessment with notes open. By requiring that the student who takes a field exam to take an exam without notes we are requiring a level of "digestion" of the material-some thought and understanding and engagement with the course material. We also want to prevent what we hear is sometimes happening in the field where students are taking marked up answer sheets or manuals into an exam session that have been passed along to them by others. They are completing the exam with little exposure to or understanding of the course content. 2. If the test administrators already have been notified the registrants for exams given in January that the fee is $10, we will honor that original fee.