The most important issue for the tester is security. Any testing situation must be designed to make it difficult for test subjects to cheat. In addition, any electronic testing platform must make testing data secure in all possible situations. The computerized testing platform software addresses the issues.
One security concern is that the test itself can be copied and used on another device without the user's permission. The computerized testing platform deals with this issue by giving the tester the ability to distribute encryption keys and/or unique IDs to all test subjects. The Test Document Creator module or the Test Document Download module can encrypt the test document. The test document is now secure. Once downloaded, the Test Display can decrypt the document using its encryption key for interpretation.
Another security concern facing computerized testing platform is the possibility that the test subject tries to use other software stored on the computing device to hide answers, or use the computing device's hardware features such as wireless internet access to get answers during the test. TestLock is a feature designed within the Test Display module to deal with this issue. Once activated, TestLock precludes user access to any other software applications other than those authorized by the tester. In addition, any hardware feature that is not necessary to the completion of the test is turned off. Once the test is completed and uploaded, TestLock is deactivated and the user regains full access to the client computer.
Testers usually institute time periods for when the test should be taken. TimeLock is a feature built within the Test Display module that controls when the user can view the test. The clock of the Client Computer can be synchronized to clock of a server computer by the Test Document Download module. TimeLock uses the client computer's clock to prevent the testing subject from opening a new test or section outside the prescribed time frame. The time frame would be described by the document created by the Test Document Creator module.
Even without TimeLock being activated, testers may want to create a situation in which a test has multiple sections, but the user is not allowed to go back to a completed section. SectionLock is a mechanism implemented in the Test Display module that prevents the user from going back to previous sections.
Finally, a security breach can occur if a test subject gives his test to another test subject for the same test given at another time. To solve this issue, Test display module gives the user the option of deleting all test information after the test upload, at the end of a specified time frame, or when the user tried to relaunch the test application. The Test Upload module can use encryption to secure data that is being transported to the Test Grader module.