At the beginning of March 2016 600,000 trainee accountants across the globe, were given access to a new e-assessment tool which they are using, to demonstrate their eligibility to become members of a leading accountancy professional body. Most of the trainees already had captured some evidence and recorded time on the old tool and therefore it was a significant task to add this data to the new tool. This task was made doubly difficult by the fact that changes had been made to some of the assessment methodology.
The fact that the launch passed off without incident was a testimony to our skills and the robustness of the NOW.net platform that the company uses. We were subject to rigorous testing during the development phase and we were able to demonstrate our capacity to deal with multiple users accessing our platform at the same time.
The Association of Certified Chartered Accountants (ACCA) like other accountancy professional bodies requires their trainees to produce a record of their practice experience as well as take exams. This record is set against a list of required competencies and time spent on practicing as an accountant is also captured. It is then assessed by a workplace supervisor.
The ACCA did previously have an online practice experience tool however the new tool brings many new features and benefits. It can be accessed on all devices using a browser and automatically resizes to fit each device. The ‘learning journey’ that trainees take is easily mapped out for them and they can see at a glance the progress they have made.
The benefits to the ACCA is they have a tool that can be easily authored and administered. Changes to the site can be made without the need to involve the company and the comprehensive administration tool provides easy access for the ACCA administrators to all parts of the tool.
The opportunity to extend this e-assessment approach to other qualifications that are currently paper based is now being actively explored.
This project is further evidence of how agile and innovative small e-assessment companies can successfully provide a great solution to one of the largest professional bodies.
