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Employee Training and Certification and Motivation

Employee Training – Government Edition

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Little known fact: employee training is not just for quiz makers and private companies! Government training and state testing are also important on a much larger scale. It just so happens that the private sector is not the only one in need of skilled workforce. Regardless of what you may have heard about government employees in general, they too need to educate and better themselves and there are all sorts of things about employee training that agencies have yet to learn, in addition to those they have reluctantly adopted.

Why is Government Training Necessary?

When was the last time anyone has heard of a budget increase for a government institution, other than in times of a huge national crisis? And when was the last time somebody working for the government got in front of a camera and started talking about pending budget cuts? You’ve heard a lot more of the latter, and this is kind of endemic in most countries. On the one hand, we have people who are supposed to be in charge of things of extreme importance like making and enforcing laws and policies. On the other, many of these agencies could not even pass the regulatory inspection that they themselves condone, support or are trying to enforce.

It is the equivalent of seeing a police car parked on a spot reserved for people with handicaps. In fact, even when these agencies do decide to modernize, it is hastily executed and any subsequent updates are sketchy at best. At worst, they are nonexistent, and it puts us all at risk. The list of things they should be doing but aren’t is almost as long as the list of excuses they have come up with to counter them. It seems policy updates seem to reach the general public faster than they do the people who are supposed to be acting upon them.

There are people whose jobs involve risking their lives or saving other people, and you kind of need them to take regular competency tests, like paramedics and cops. Seeing an overweight cop or a soldier has long since stopped to phase anyone. Instead of enforcing rules and regulations, the military is figuring out ways for overweight people and those who would otherwise fail at the physical to be allowed in because they lack the manpower as well as the resources to hire professionals. Or people manning nuclear silos being forced to use those huge floppy disks from the ’70s.

Or something as trivial as waiting in line for a new photo ID because of “system failure” or some software update. It is scary when regular people have more technology at their disposal than government officials and workers.

Introducing Software into Employee Training in Governments

Employee training software has been around for years, and not just as a concept. In some instances, it is literally the same software but at least some of it comes from a time when the priorities were still straight. When using any kind of software, the age-old fear of a catastrophic failure that would leave millions of people in distress and other reliability issues are still relevant even to this day. Aside from that, they need something that can be quickly applied all across the country. If it takes too long to create universal tests and organize groups, this simply will not do. The more versatile, the better. If it is automatic, this would be just swell. When your tests are of pen and paper variety, there are numerous issues from  lack of standardization, to fear of cheating and don’t even get us started on the grading process. With computer tests, everything is done automatically, with a push of a button. Except for filling out the blank spaces – that is for the trainees, of course. The efficiency is vastly superior in almost every way, except when you want to grade an essay or something like that. But even that is easier to do in an electronic form. The only people who are against this are the old-fashioned employees who are scared of technology.

The Most Important Thing – Security

As with most things, safety is going to be a serious issue. Those urban myths about 14-year-olds with laptops emailing nuclear launch codes to Pentagon may be exaggerated, but they illustrate the core issue. They have a lot to learn from companies and sites such as Oracle, whose databases tend to be the most secure of them all. Additional safety measures need to be applied and they need to be constantly updated as any government site is under threat these days.

Versatility of Use

As we have mentioned, the best case scenario would be the possibility to merge databases and share software between different agencies and similar departments. For instance, giving police access to the driving test database might even save some lives on the long run, but the potential for abuse also increases with every such “solution”. As much as we all want a “one size fits all” solution, it could not possibly be available right now. Or could it be?

One of the solutions that could fit the needs of employees training in government institutions is YouTestMe Get Certified. Get Certified allows instructors to generate tests and create custom designed certificates for employees and significantly reduce employee training costs.

Knowledge Management - Modern Testing

Knowledge Management – Traditional vs. Modern Testing

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As knowledge management becomes one of the key areas for future development, experts still debate the merits of traditional testing and compare it to the computer-based one. Whether it comes to making adjustments to the Learning Management System (LMS), or testing solutions regarding Virtual Learning Environments (VLE), some people still prefer the old ways over the new. This position is understandable, but it is also important to take an objective view of the current situation and make plans for the future.

What kind of testing is the most dominant nowadays?

It goes without saying that the traditional, paper-based approach is by far more users across the board. Due to its low cost, ubiquitous status, and the fact that it has been proven in action time and time again, a lot of people prefer it over the uncertain, costly alternative that is CBT. However, times are changing, and those that fail to keep up will be left behind. With that in mind, CBT has been gaining in popularity as a knowledge management tool, especially over the last decade. The sheer amount of research on this topic has been growing at an exponential rate, but conclusions are still… inconclusive.

The thing is, technology is developing at such a rapid pace that studies and their findings cease to be relevant in a matter of years, so a lot of the initial studies have been rendered inconsequential a long time ago. Besides, the computer experience an average candidate has nowadays is vastly different from what it would have been a decade ago, or what it will be a decade from now. However, if there is a general consensus on this issue, at least when it comes to studies conducted within the last three years or so, it would be that there is no major difference between CBT and PBT, as the difference is smaller than 0.05%. Of course, this may change in the future.

Knowledge management today – use of modern technologies

As technology advances, so do the testing methods, even at lower education levels – not to mention companies. For one, computers and tablets have been present in most schools for years, in some form or another. The increased level of interaction between students and teachers has also resulted in additional testing methods, that are done via computers and other devices. At the university level, many institutions resort to OpenCourseWare (OCW), Google Classroom, or similar solutions for knowledge management problems.

As for companies and solutions aimed primarily at adults, we can see an ever-increasing use of social networks for educational purposes. The potential to adopt knowledge from one’s peers as well as its success rate has not gone unnoticed. Webcams, whiteboards, and screencasting have all found their uses in this area as well.

Paper-based vs. computer-based testing

Each of them has certain benefits over the other. For instance, the cost of paper-based testing is essentially boiled down to a sheet of paper and the person in charge of monitoring the exam, whereas computer-based testing requires electricity, computers, and other means that make the initial costs much higher. On the other hand, it is a lot easier to implement en masse and is arguably much safer in terms of administration. Then again, it all depends on the level of measures implemented against cheating and the level of commitment on behalf of those being examined.

In the long run, however, CBT does involve a number of advantages. For one, exams do not need to be shipped to a physical location, so there should be no delays or associated costs. Simple encryption should keep away most troublemakers. Most importantly, scoring is a lot faster in this regard, as everything is done electronically. The probability of human error is much lower as well. One downside is that this only applies to certain types of tests, so scoring essays in this manner is still far too good to be true. PBT will most likely remain in use, at least on some level – until CBT technology has advanced enough to take over entirely.

CBT in practice

Before introducing a virtual learning environment, many institutions specializing in education such as Cambridge were beyond reach to the overwhelming majority of people. After all, you can only fit so many people inside a classroom at one time. However, after making the switch to include advanced technologies complete with CBT, the overall level of education has increased dramatically. This is a life-changing opportunity for people who could not afford to study at a prestigious university due to lack of funds or because they have to support their families. In the future, however, most universities will offer their services online in one form or another, while maintaining the regular, physical lessons to those who can afford them.

From language teaching to gaining new skills, various companies all around the world have resorted to this kind of knowledge management for their employees, especially in the IT sector. The ability to create a universal test, translate it into a number of languages, and conduct it simultaneously in several different countries has not gone unnoticed by major companies. There are even companies that specialize in conducting computer-based testing and offering their services to schools and businesses alike.

YouTestMe Software Solutions

YouTestMe recognized the potential of improving modern ways of testing and developed two knowledge testing platforms that are very competitive in today’s e-learning market. The first solution is Classroom 2020, a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) that offers a wide set of features bound to improve the quality of lecturing and testing. It was designed for schools, colleges public, and government institutions.  The second solution, Get Certified, a quiz maker and certification platform, answers to the constant requirement of employee training and certification. But those are only a few features that our products have. Feel free to sign up for free demos of Classroom 2020 and Get Certified to see for yourself all of the advantages of modern knowledge testing solutions.