The National College Testing Association Conference (NCTA 2015) in St. Pete, Florida is less than a week away and I can barley contain my excitement! Not just because it’s a great conference, not just because I get to see a bunch of my friends from different schools, not just because I get to go back to my home state of Florida, and not just because I am presenting on how to pilot emerging technologies on campus…. oh wait- no, that is why I am so exited. This presentation has been in the works for a long time and is a by-product of the startup mentality we embody that I am excited to share with the NCTA members.
A New Methodology for Piloting Emerging Technologies is the result of dozens of pilots we’ve worked on at ProctorFree and research from disruptive innovation, educational psychology, and entrepreneurship. If you can’t make it to St. Pete next week, that’s cool – I’m going to offer the gist of it here.
Emerging technology is risky by nature. Entrepreneurship is risky by misnomer. Entrepreneurship is actually about risk mitigation, not risk taking. Using entrepreneurial practice to frame a pilot study to determine the efficacy for a university can be a formative experience for all stakeholders. In the methodology I’ll present next week, we focus on the continual improvements, consistent refinements, rapid prototyping through the pilot itself to use it as a furnace to mold the perfect product or service for you and your students. You can also think about this as a repositioning of a pilot’s purpose. Instead of being the make-or-break for a vendor, it becomes a collaborative experience.
Getting buy-in from students and faculty is difficult, especially in the high-stakes testing industry. Creating a collaborative environment and co-creating software has proven to be a positive and welcomed experience.
I’m looking forward to sharing the challenges we’ve encumbered and keys to success that can be applied to any emerging technology on campus. If you can’t make it, follow along with the hashtag #nctaconf15 to see all the updates from NCTA 2015.
