2009 FSA Planning Conference

FSA Planning Conference, October 28th

e-FSA

  • lots of upgrades from plnet and awis
  • tremendous amount of load testing
  • confident problems encountered have been solved
  • not certain on some of the reasons for latency issues

e-FSA 2009 Planning

  • lower rate of use in the afternoon provincially
  • highest at 9am, 11am Pacific
  • need to run sample test at all sites again
  • Can decide who writes when or allow schools flexibility. Is this a district decision or school by school?
  • Sample 2009 is now available on the website… http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/eassessment/fsa.htm
  • Longer field testing, Dec 8 – Jan 23rd… unit of test only. Students are randomly assigned units
  • Field test can be used to test the system with WTS resources monitoring location (Peter Goldberg at PLNet, Brian Jonkers at Assessment branch)
  • FSA Administration is Feb 2-27th.
  • Can schedule at will
  • reqs
  • PC windows 2000, XP, Vista
  • Mac OSX 10.3, 10.4, 10.5
  • IE 5.5-7, Firefox 3.0.1 on the PC
  • Safari 3.1, Firefox 2.0.0.1-2.0.0.14 (firefox 3.0 worked on mac) Mac
  • Pop-up blockers must be turned off
  • Pre-admin test at web address above should be tested on the machines to be used, quick way to test
  • Trusted sites: https://www.awinfosys.com, add this site in web browser on proxy server if problems occur
  • Cookies must be enabled… if they are not enabled you will see a “password is incorrect”
  • Javascripting must be enabled, blank pages often occur if javascript is not enabled
  • Proxy caching must be turned off during exam administration
  • If you have difficulties on the login page (blank page after login) hit F5 or Apple+R to refresh the screen and try logging in again.
  • Questions can be directed to PRN helpdesk from schools. Technology Services can call A. Willock if we have difficulty at 1-866-558-5339 (not to be used by schools please! Call helpdesk first so we can troubleshoot it first)
  • Don’t hit F5 / refresh after they have started. Shouldn’t  need to refresh during fsa.
  • Caching turned off is critical. If logging into network with same login on mac, make sure they don’t have a home directory (shared chaching)… need to check new ncomputing boxes

Questions for our planning

  • local issues?
  • Scheduling?
  • Timelines?
  • Resources?
  • Communication?

Ideas

  • stagger students writing the e-fsa and the written to prevent cheating, extra space in lab. Don’t need to stagger for load.
  • mix the grade 4 and 7 into same lab, multiaged group, 7’s can model and help possibly