The ATA Chronicle - May/June 2022 - 38

CERTIFICATION FORUM By David Stephenson
The Certification Exam:
In Demand and on Demand!
A
TA recently launched
its second year
of offering the
certification exam online. In
2021, we began partnering
with ExamRoom.AI, an
international remote testing
platform, to allow candidates
to take the exam from home.
After some initial hiccups,
this proved to be a successful
and popular collaboration.
In all, 150 candidates took
the online exam, whereas
fewer than 100 attended
in-person sittings. In both
cases, capacity bottlenecks
forced us to turn away a
number of people interested
in becoming certified. The
plan this year is to greatly
expand the availability of the
online exam, which entails a
few key changes.
Last year, ATA scheduled
virtual sittings (i.e., set
times at which a limited
number of candidates took
the exam remotely). They
were monitored by proctors
from ExamRoom-who
provided technical support
and also watched for obvious
prohibited behavior, such
as cell phone use or talking
to someone off-camera-as
well as ATA proctors, who
watched for unauthorized
internet use.1
This year, candidates will
do initial registration via
ATA, selecting their language
pair and making payment,
and then be passed on to
ExamRoom to schedule
the exam at a time of the
candidate's choosing. This
means that for the first time
ever, candidates will be able
to schedule their own exam
sitting. Moreover, there's
virtually no limit2
on the
number of candidates who
can take the exam.
The second key change
is that instead of allowing
candidates to access all
of the internet apart from
specifically prohibited sites
(such as DeepL or sites with
chat or forums), this year
we're flipping that around
and allowing candidates to
use only a long list of allowed
resource sites. Everything
else will be blocked
automatically-and thus
there's no longer any need
for ATA proctors to monitor
internet usage. (These two
approaches to internet
access used to be known by
the implicitly racist terms
" blacklist " and " whitelist. " )
The new " Allow List " 3
for 2022 has been carefully
selected by graders with
outside input. It includes
monolingual English and
non-English resources,
bilingual dictionary sites,
and some multilingual
sites. We believe this will
be much less confusing for
candidates, as they'll know
in advance and during the
exam exactly which sites
they can use. It will also even
out expectations, as both
graders and candidates can
be confident that qualified
candidates, by applying
their knowledge and skills
and using the allowed list of
resources, can successfully
38 The ATA Chronicle | May/June 2022
address the challenges
present in the exam.
In addition to the ondemand
online exam, we're
still allowing local groups to
organize in-person sittings.
Be advised that candidates
taking the in-person exam
will also be limited to the
same Allow List of internet
resources as other candidates.
And finally, all print resources
continue to be permitted for
both the online and in-person
exam, and candidates are also
free to use glossaries stored
on their computer/laptop, as
long as they aren't contained
within a computer-assisted
translation program.
There are sure to be
some additional sites that
individuals would like to
see on the Allow List. The
Certification Committee is
open to suggestions,4
but
it remains the final arbiter
of what makes it onto the
list. Before you send in a
suggestion for an additional
site, bear in mind that the
NOTES
1.
2.
3.
exam is not a vocabulary
drill, and that the passages
are of general subject matter.
Gone are the days when we
had semi-technical texts
that might have necessitated
an array of specialized
dictionaries. My advice to
candidates regarding the
Allow List is to consider
the sites already permitted
very carefully and focus on
the ones that provide the
most practical assistance. If
there's a site missing that
you think should absolutely
be permitted, we'll consider
adding it to the list, but any
changes will not take effect
until 2023.
Everyone in the
Certification Program is
excited by this new prospect
of unlimited access to the
exam. Getting to this point
has required a huge effort by
current and former members
of the Certification
Committee, graders, proctors,
and especially Certification
Program Manager Caron
Bailey and the late Michèle
Hansen, Certification
Committee Chair from
2020 to 2021. Kudos to
everyone involved!
Besides live monitoring, all sessions are recorded for later
review if necessary.
Subject to grader capacity for processing completed exams.
ATA Computerized Exam Online Resource List: What's
Permitted and What's Not, tinyurl.com/ATAExamResources.
4.
Send to certification@atanet.org.
David Stephenson, CT is chair of ATA's
Certification Committee. An ATA-certified
German>English, Dutch>English, and
Croatian>English translator, he has been an
independent translator for over 30 years,
specializing in civil litigation and creative nonfiction.
david@bullcitylang.com.
www.atanet.org
http://www.ExamRoom.AI http://tinyurl.com/ATAExamResources http://www.atanet.org
The ATA Chronicle - May/June 2022

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