Software Development: Online Exam Administration
British Council
Brief
Provide a web-based system for students anywhere in the world to apply to sit British examinations.
Business Case
The British Council connects people worldwide with learning opportunities and creative ideas from the UK and builds lasting relationships between the UK and other countries.
Education is a key part of the British Council’s brief, and part of this is to provide a service whereby foreign students can take examinations which result in British qualifications.
Mobility and globalisation is creating a rapid rise in demand for internationally-recognised qualifications, and those offered by UK examining boards are accepted as being among the best.
Implementation
We developed a truly global system based on our INCLUSIVITY web process architecture, running on Microsoft infrastructure. The system consists of three web-based applications, all accessing the same SQL Server database.
The public-facing website allows users (students or schools) to find the most suitable qualification, apply to sit the examination and pay for it. A secure extranet provides an online interface for examining boards to enter their information - this includes an interface to link directly to the examining boards’ systems. The final application is an intranet which allows British Council staff to carry out financial processes, manage the system and monitor the service.
The workflow between all three groups of users is seamlessly linked through the database.
The system is fully internationalised and multilingual. |