There are two great events coming up that we want you to know about. The first is the 9th annual Innovations in Testing conference. Hosted by the Association of Test Publishers, this conference is scheduled to take place March 3-5, 2008 at the Gaylord Texan in Dallas, TX.
According to the Innovations in Testing website, “This year’s event includes workshops, general sessions with informative and thought-provoking keynote presentations, over 60 breakout sessions on relevant topics, poster session presentations, and several networking activities”.
Although most of the conference will focus on the educational aspect of testing, there are some great speakers slated to present for the IT Certification side of the house and our whole week is already overbooked. Aside from learning everything we can about test security, Taylor and I will be connecting with many of the big names in Exam Security and Integrity. Some of the corporations involved in this year’s event are Prometric, Pearson VUE, Microsoft, Cisco, Caveon, Kryterion, EMC, PMI, and VMWare.
There are some great topics relating to IT Certification integrity that we will be attending. Caveon, Cisco, EMC, and Microsoft will be presenting a session titled “Cheater, Cheater, Pumpkin Eater! How to Beat the Cheats” which covers everything Taylor and I are concerned with. “Areas covered include: * fraud prevention, * enforcement policies and procedures, * identifing, tracking and reporting on exam fraud incidents, * legal action against cheat sites, and * industry efforts focused on eliminating the cheating industry.“. If we’re not too overworked that week, we’re going to try to get you some information from the event, possibly even see if we can setup some interviews for our future blog.
The second event is the 2008 ATP Test Security Summit (“the summit”) and will also be at the Gaylord Texan, but will take place on March 5 & 6, 2008. This year’s theme is “Preventing Test Fraud and Protecting Intellectual Property” and is for policy advisors, program managers and test users across the field of testing. Industry experts will discuss “real case studies of test fraud and how they dealt effectively with the cheats and the intellectual property pirates”. This is the First international summit on identifying test fraud, preventing test fraud and enforcing test security and we are glad to be witness to it.
It may be a two-day event, but it too is packed with interesting and innovative speakers in the testing industry. The second 1/2 of the first day is a special one for us because a panel of legal experts will be discussing cases where they have helped protect intellectual property (“IP”) and they will be taking questions and sharing their key tips for the legal issues involved in tackling test fraud. What is so special about this segment is that one of those legal experts will be introducing services that we have collaborated on to help certification vendors reduce the amount of braindumps on the internet.
The remainder of the two days will consist of three hands-on working sessions called, Collaborative Working Communities (CWCs). The sessions will help program managers and test sponsors translate the preceding presentations into practical steps to strengthen testing programs.
I will be attending the event for the first time in my career and I’ve got tons of people to meet, but if you’re going to be there and want to catch up with me, leave a comment and I’ll open up some time for you.
