Staff are pleased to announce that 37 new pathway practice tests have been posted for use by both teachers and students. These practice tests, each with 20 items, represent a sample from all the end-of-course item banks. There are items from all courses included in the pathway. Please note that none of these items are included on the pretest or post-test - their purpose is to simulate the experience of the post-tests.

Staff will be posting three Cybersecurity End-of-Course Item Banks at the end of November for field testing, so that we can finalize them at the end of the school year. When finalized, four of five pathways in the Information Technology career field will feature enhanced item banks due to rewriting and re-rating of existing items by Ohio CTE instructors at secondary and post secondary levels. The importance of cybersecurity is highlighted by the work of the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE), which has useful tutorials about interviewing skills, resume writing, and the workforce framework available at their website linked below.

The WebXam User's Workshop was held at CETE in Columbus on October 11^th. Video recordings of the webinar have been posted online for users who were not able to attend. This workshop highlights navigating and using the WebXam system. Teachers and administrators new to the WebXam system are encouraged to watch, but the workshop will also serve as a worthwhile refresher for experienced users. If the matter is NOT urgent, viewing this recording is the first step our support personnel are likely to ask about when you call or submit an email ticket.

Do you teach in the Engineering & Manufacturing career fields? We are looking for subject-matter experts (SMEs) in these two career fields for the item-writing workshops in 2018-19. If you're interested in participating, please visit http://go.osu.edu/EM-item-writing and complete our registration survey. We will be finalizing our lists soon and item-writing will begin in late November.

Additional testing blueprints have been made available for most all tests at the WebXam About the Tests page. Test blueprints are reviewed by the subject-matter experts at the beginning of the item-writing process and are used to determine the percentage of items written to each strand and outcome. Test blueprints reflect the overall structure of the item bank. Blueprints are important because they allow teachers to build classroom activities around the course outlines knowing the distribution of the test items to the outcomes. Please note that percentages are approximate, and do not reflect the exact percentage of items for each standard on the test.

WebXam Teacher Review workshops allow career-technical education instructors a formal opportunity to review, rate and comment on finalized WebXam tests (once per cycle of 4-5 years). Teacher Reviews are held in Columbus, Ohio, throughout the school year. More information, including cost and registration, can be found at the link below. The next review will be held 11/14/2018.