The Test Community.Network

In this week's episode, Tim Burnett chats with Gelareh Keshavarz, EdD(c), CMP, President of the Athabasca University Graduate Students' Association and a Board of Governors member at Athabasca University, ahead of the IAEA conference in Toronto. They discuss: - The "illusion of polish" — why finished, authoritative-looking AI-assisted work can hide the fact that nobody has questi...

Read the articles in full: https://testcommunity.network/collections/9th-july-weekly-update This week's collection spans the fault lines running through assessment right now. Test security dominates, with Portugal suspending its national exam marking platform over security failings, the California DMV facing possible mass licence revocations over testing anomalies, and Maharashtra's MPSC d...

In this week's episode, Tim Burnett chats with Munira Mohammad, who leads a team of psychometricians, statisticians and academic experts at the Aga Khan University Examination Board (AKU-EB) — Pakistan's first private national board for secondary and higher secondary certificates. They discuss: Why digitising a high-stakes paper exam isn't simply an efficiency win — and how changing th...

This week's global update covers 26 stories spanning test security and integrity (exam fraud scandals in Thailand, paper leaks in India, AI-enabled cheating with smart glasses), regulatory developments (EU AI Act updates, SQE evaluation, Portugal's digitalisation fallout), and professional credentialing (GPhC's renewed Surpass contract, ETS's acquisition of ACT, global certificatio...

This week's update brings together 21 stories from across the global assessment landscape. Test security dominates the headlines, with 2.3 million students retaking India's medical entrance exam after a leak, Thai officials caught altering scores for bribes, and fresh calls for accountability that would place exam integrity squarely on the shoulders of institution heads. Elsewhere, we look...

In this week's episode, Tim Burnett chats with Emily Worthington, Head of Programmes at Pearson VUE and 2026 Chair of the European Association of Test Publishers (E-ATP). They discuss: - Why AI is forcing a fundamental rethink of assessment — and how the industry plans to rise to the challenge much as it did during the pandemic - What's on the agenda for the E-ATP conference in Rome this O...

In this week's episode, Tim Burnett chats with Ebrahim Talaee, Associate Professor and Assistant Dean for Curricular Assessment and Evaluation at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix, and a fellow ambassador for the IAEA's 51st Annual Conference in Toronto. They discuss: How AI is being used to develop and clone medical multiple choice questions — and why content experts...

Welcome to the Test Community Network's weekly update for 18th June 2026. This week's collection spans 23 articles, podcasts, and research pieces from across the global assessment and education landscape. From the gaokao's place in a shifting job market and India's ongoing examination integrity challenges, to the growing regulatory scramble around AI in schools and fresh research o...

Twenty stories this week. Here are the headlines. Surpass has dropped version 26.1 with AI-powered item search and automated similarity detection. Tim Burnett's vibe coding talk from the EAA AI Symposium is now live as a podcast — including a moat analysis of 29 assessment vendors. And Globebyte has launched an audit-ready AI assessment platform built on Anthropic, with EU AI Act compliance ba...

In this week's episode, Tim Burnett presents his talk "Code Without Coders: What the Rise of Vibe Coding Means for Assessment," originally delivered at the AI Symposium during the EAA Conference in London. He discusses: 🔹 What vibe coding is, how it works, and why it was named Collins Dictionary's word of the year — from tools like Lovable, Replit and Cursor through to coding ag...

This week's global news collection brings together 21 stories from across the assessment and education technology landscape. Test security dominates, with CBSE's On-Screen Marking crisis in India unfolding across a coordinated cyberattack, a vendor under scrutiny, and a sharp argument that the real failure is one of governance rather than technology. Leaked Cambridge International papers,...

In this week's episode, Tim Burnett chats with Richard Gott, Chair and Founder of the MemberWise Network — a professional network for over 8,000 membership and association professionals across the UK and EU. They discuss: Why membership organisations are moving from piloting AI to needing proper integration — and why only around 20% have got there so far The gap between AI adoption and AI stra...

This week's collection brings together 18 items from across the assessment world. AI continues to dominate the conversation, with research warning that generative AI overuse may deskill graduates, a striking statistic showing student AI use in exams has risen to 92%, and several voices calling for a fundamental rethink of assessment design in response. Elsewhere, a teenage researcher's dis...

Assessment & Testing Updates Oxford seminar exploring how AI could transform examinations, personalised learning, authenticity, surveillance and inequality. https://testcommunity.network/a-new-examination-era-ai-and-the-transformation-of-educational-assessment Surpass Conference 2026 heads to Manchester with sessions on AI, digital assessment, skills and the future of qualifications. https://t...

In this week's episode, Tim Burnett chats with Lee Fawcett, a counter-fraud and investigation specialist supporting the UK qualifications and assessment industry. They discuss: - How a £7.36 USB webcam and a vibe-coded cheating app scored 8 out of 10 on a GCSE algebra test — with almost no technical expertise required - Why online proctoring platforms still can't detect the full range of c...

In this week's episode, Tim Burnett chats with Hugh McNeela, Sales Account Manager for Corporate Learning (UK & Ireland) at ReadSpeaker. They discuss: - Why text-to-speech in assessments isn't just an accessibility tool, and how a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) approach benefits all candidates, including the 70% of people with neurodiversity challenges who never disclose their con...

In this week's episode, Tim Burnett chats with Mary Pitoniak, Assessment and Measurement Expert and President of Pitoniak Educational Measurement. They discuss: Why reliability, validity and fairness are the three pillars of good assessment — and how they connect, reinforce and constrain each other Whether personalised assessment powered by AI is really ready for prime time, especially for hig...

You don't need to be a developer to build software anymore — and this session proves it. In this hands-on webinar, Tim Burnett explores three game-changing AI developments that are reshaping how professionals work and build:🛠️ Vibe Coding — Learn how anyone can create functional apps and tools just by describing what they want in plain English. No programming experience required. We cover the...

In this week's episode, Tim Burnett chats with Dr Lena Gray and Rebecca Frankum, a consultant assessment researcher and a policy analyst at the OECD respectively. They discuss: The findings from the OECD's major new report mapping 71 upper secondary certificates across 38 education systems worldwide Why polarised debates around exams versus teacher-based assessment don't hold up in pra...

A Practical Guide to Authoring Test Items with Artificial IntelligenceTim Burnett, Founder of the Test Community Network, is publishing a brand-new guide: A Practical Guide to Authoring Test Items with Artificial Intelligence. In this live session, Tim will walk you through the guide, sharing the key findings, practical techniques, and insights gathered during a research sprint conducted with prac...

In this week's episode, Tim Burnett chats with Med Kharbach, PhD, an educator, researcher, and part-time faculty member at Mount Saint Vincent University. They discuss: - AI literacy for educators and students — what AI-literate students do differently and why freely available practitioner guides matter more than academic jargon - Rethinking assessment design in an AI-saturated world — moving...

In this week's episode, Tim Burnett chats with Ben Smith, from Gordon Associates. They discuss the upcoming AO Forum 2026, the evolving role of AI in awarding bodies, and what's new across Gordon Associates' product suite. They discuss: The AO Forum 2026 – What to expect from this year's event on 22nd April in London, including a heavyweight regulator panel featuring Ofqual, Qualif...

In this week's episode, Tim Burnett chats with Dr. Erin Leeming, Doctor of Speech and Language Pathology at the University of Central Florida. They discuss: - Using an escape room as an alternative assessment method for a phonetics class, and how it reduced student anxiety while revealing deeper learning - The role of immersive technology, including a hologram machine, in creating realistic cl...

Safety Training Awards didn't go looking for an AI marking solution — but a chance conversation led them to sAInaptic, and it's already transforming how their tutors deliver feedback on swimming teacher lesson plans. In this episode, STA's Director of Education Kaylë Brightwell joins sAInaptic co-founders Raj Iyer and Kavitha Ravindran to share what happened when they took the leap — f...

In this week's episode, Tim Burnett chats with E.W. Looney, CEO and Founder of BrightLink, a technology company and advisory firm specialising in credentialing programme management. They discuss: - The Complexity Wall in Credentialing - How programmes hit predictable scaling challenges when manual processes break down under volume and regulatory scrutiny - AI Teammates in Operations - BrightLi...