The Winter 2015 release of Surpass includes an array of new features and enhancements, including the ability to easily customise Surpass, and tests delivered, with your organisation's own branding.

To find out more about the changes, read the 'New Features' section below. You can also find a list of changes to our minimum system requirements and a summary of issues fixed in this release at the bottom of this article. You can also visit the Surpass Help and the Surpass Learning Portal to find out more about these exciting new features.

New Features

Below you will find details of new and changed features that have been introduced in R12.2 of Surpass. The features are divided into sections based on the area of the system which they affect.

Setup and Admin: New Languages
Spanish, Latin American Spanish, and US English have now been added as available language options for the user interface and test delivery screens.

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Item Authoring: Creating a Finish Page
Users can now choose to create a Finish page from the basic pages menu in Item Authoring. This is a page that will be shown to the candidate at the end of a test, after they have finished and submitted their responses.

Item Authoring: Hyperlinks on Introduction and Finish Pages
Hyperlinks can now be included on Introduction and Finish pages. This could be used for guiding candidates to useful websites, linking surveys to tests, or directing them to the awarding organisation's website on completion of the test.

Item Authoring: Introduction and Finish Page Notifications
In the Test Wizard, users will now be prompted to add an Introduction and/or Finish Page to their test if one hasn't already been added.

Item Authoring: Multiple Response Questions on Paper
Surpass now supports the inclusion of Multiple Response Questions on the printable test function. This will allow Multiple Response Questions to be taken on paper.

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Test Creation: Test Profiles and Delivery Options
Users can now create Test Profiles to customise the delivery of tests, to include both client and provider branding. This includes the ability to show a client and provider logo on the initial delivery screens, and also the ability to customise the colour scheme of primary and secondary buttons and text within test delivery. Once created, test profiles can be assigned to tests created in Test Creation or the Test Wizard. Users can also decide which candidate details should be shown on the candidate confirmation screen.
Two new delivery styles have been introduced to support Test Profiles - 'Custom Branding' and 'Custom Branding Forward Only'. 

Test Creation: Timed Sections
Surpass now provides the option to set durations for individual sections, and Introduction and Finish pages in Test Creation.
Individual sections can also now be unlocked, which means that whilst the rest of an exam can be delivered in lockdown mode, a particular section can be set to unlocked. 

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Test Delivery: Candidate Details and Confirmation/ NDA Screen Amendments
During Test Delivery, the candidate confirmation screens have now been split into two steps: User Details confirmation and NDA confirmation. The user can decide which of these screens should be shown to the candidate, and a duration can also be set for each of these screens to determine how long the candidate can spend on them. The amount of text that can be included in the confirmation text box has now been increased to 1000 characters.  

Test Delivery: Highlighting
A candidate may now highlight parts of text on a page. This can help candidates refer to certain parts of the text when answering questions during a test. To do this, a candidate simply selects and holds the left mouse button over the relevant text and the option to highlight will appear.

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Candidate Review: Show Correct Items
During a candidate review session, the correct answer will be shown to the candidate when they answered incorrectly for the following question types: Multiple Choice, Multiple Response, Either / Or, Numerical Entry, Short Answer, Hotspot 

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Reporting: Columns added to Item Bank Report
Column for P Values and Usage Count have been added to the Item Bank report. This allows Surpass users to easily access an item's overall difficulty level and usage count across all tests delivered.

Reporting: Filter Improvements
The search filters within Reporting now display the 'Last Sat' duration by number of days rather than weeks and months. This provides greater accuracy when filtering according to date. The date range filter being applied will be visible underneath the search box.

Reporting: New Statistics
Pearson's R (R Value) and Point Biserial can now be found as columns in the Items Delivered section of the Reporting screen, and the Standard Error of Measurement can be found in the Test Form Report. These statistics allow further analysis of results within Surpass.

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Site Settings: System Branding
Users with the Site Admin permission are now able to customise the login screen and home screen of Surpass. This includes being able to customise the logo above the Username and Password boxes on the login screen, (along with the existing functionality of changing the login screen image), as well as being able to customise the content and appearance of the welcome banner on the home screen. 

Site Settings: Support for Commas
Surpass Site Settings now includes the option to enable support for commas as separators in numerical figures. With this enabled, commas will be used as separators instead of a decimal point for numerical entry questions.

Integration: Updates to Surpass API
There have been a number of updates to the Surpass API for Release 12.2, which now lets users communicate with resources such as subjects, users, and items. It now includes a total of 19 resources and over 50 methods. To find out more, please visit the Surpass API help page by navigating to [your surpass URL]/api/v2. Further information can also be found on the Surpass Developer Portal.

Integration: SurpassLocal
With the introduction of SurpassLocal, you can now use Surpass to deliver tests via a Local Area Network at centres. Once SurpassLocal is installed onto the local server, tests scheduled for delivery at that centre are automatically downloaded from Surpass to SurpassLocal. Candidates are then able to sit their tests by connecting to the local server, meaning no internet connection is required for test delivery. Test results are then uploaded to Surpass when an internet connection is available from the local server.

If you are interested in finding out more about SurpassLocal, contact your BTL Account Manager.

Changes to Surpass System Requirements

As well as updating our supported browser versions to include the current latest available versions of Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, we have also updated our requirement for Adobe Flash Player. Surpass now supports Flash Player Version 18 to Version 20.0.0.228.  

Fixed Issues and Defects

Below you will find details of issues that have been resolved in this release of Surpass. The issues are divided into sections based on the area of the system which they affect.

Item and Test Creation

ID: DE17592
Issue: When importing a set of items with images into Item Authoring, Surpass is importing all of the item information and data but not the images.
Resolution: The images are now correctly imported with the items.

ID: DE15919
Issue: Users cannot enter a numeric value into the grade boundary description fields within the Test Form Details screen.
Resolution: Numbers can now be entered into grade boundary description fields.

ID: DE16004
Issue: The reference values shown for Fixed Reference are not displaying in the correct order when searching for items in Test Creation.
Resolution: The information is now displayed in the correct numerical order.

ID: DE15183
Issue: If you generate multiple Test Forms of a dynamic Test and choose to save any Test Form that isn't the first one, it will still save the Test Form as the first one. This means that despite Form 3 having different question items, it will still be saved as Test Form 1.
Resolution: You can now save different Test Forms.

ID: DE16865
Issue: When cloning a Test Form, the details of the Test within the Test Delivery options screen are for the original Test you are cloning from and subsequently you can make changes to this.
Resolution: The Test Form details now displays the correct Test Form.

ID: DE17932
Issue: When using the Test Wizard to create new tests, the tests are using AS3 modes as a default rather than mixed, causing the test to be invalid when edited or scheduled.
Resolution: Test forms created using the Test Wizard now default to mixed ActionScript mode.

ID: DE18530
Issue: When creating a table question type, it is not possible to create blank static and input cells with a mark attached. When trying to set the question type to Live status, an error message is shown saying that the item cannot be saved.
Resolution: When creating a table question type, it is now possible to create blank static and input cells with marks attached without an error appearing upon saving a live item. 

ID: DE17739, DE15919
Issue: The grade boundary field in Test Creation does not allow the use of non-alphabet characters, including numbers.
Resolution: When editing grade boundaries, it is now possible to add numbers and brackets.

ID: DE17762
Issue: Packaging test forms is not functioning properly. Once the files have been saved and extracted, it cannot be run.
Resolution: The packaged test form can now be run once it is extracted from the files.

Test Administration

ID: DE16843
Issue: When editing the submission date of in-progress Computer Based Projects, it is possible to paste in text that will exceed the character count limits.
Resolution: It is not possible to enter more than the allowed number of characters allowed.

ID: DE16267
Issue: When in the Mark tab within Test Administration, if you highlight a test and select 'Mark Script' this brings up a pop-up window. If you click the blue bar to move the pop-up out of the screen, the blue bar disappears and cannot be retrieved.
Resolution: The pop-up now cannot be moved out of the screen.

ID: DE17253
Issue: On the result/feedback screen after a test, candidates see questions if there is a partial mark. The Dutch translation for partial mark is 'voorlopige score', when it should be 'gedeeltelijke score'.
Resolution: The correct translation is now used.

ID: DE17878
Issue: It is not possible to bulk schedule timed assessments, causing all bulk uploads assessments to be untimed.
Resolution: When bulk scheduling, the assessments are will now be timed if specified when creating the assessment.

ID: DE17913
Issue: When bulk scheduling candidates for an exam, validation error 48 is appearing, despite the test form not having been scheduled for the same candidates previously.
Resolution: When using the candidate bulk scheduling tool, the error 48 message does not appear when candidates are scheduled for other test forms. 

ID: DE18071, DE18672
Issue: Candidates with Reasonable Adjustment are not automatically awarded the appropriate extra time when scheduling tests through the bulk scheduling tool.
Resolution: Candidates with reasonable adjustment now have the correct time displayed when scheduling through the bulk scheduling tool.

ID: 18027
Issue: Users with the Moderate permission are unable to access some functionality on the moderate screen, including, Void, Release All, Change Grades, Quintile Analysis. Question Summary, Package Test.

Resolution: Users with the site level moderate permission will have access to these functions.

ID: DE18388
Issue: When opening a candidate's script in the Audit screen, an error is shown when opening tests with pages that contain a long item ID.
Resolution: Items in the Audit screen can be viewed successfully regardless of item ID length.

Test Delivery

ID: DE13106
Issue: When using a packaged test or web delivery, upon finishing a test there is a pop-up that asks candidates to close the browser. The pop-up has a red 'X' in the right-hand corner but nothing happens when this is clicked.
Resolution: The red 'X' is now no longer visible and the test must be closed by closing the internet tab or the browser.

ID: DE13266
Issue: When reviewing a delivered test, during the 'Summary Review' the 'Hide Feedback' button doesn't change back to 'View Feedback' on the first click, a second one is required to change it before the feedback can be shown again.
Resolution: Clicking once will now cause the button to revert back to 'View Feedback'.

ID: DE13089
Issue: When entering a keycode in SecureClient, the OK button highlights/lights up before the last 2 digits are entered.
Resolution: The keycode entry screen has been modified to enable the OK button when the correct keycode length is reached.

ID: DE17253
Issue: On the result/feedback screen after a test, candidates see questions if there is a partial mark. The Dutch translation for partial mark is 'voorlopige score', when it should be 'gedeeltelijke score'.
Resolution: The correct translation is now used.

Reporting

ID: 17382
Issue: Within the Item Bank section of the Reporting screen answers are being randomised, meaning the correct answers is not being displayed with the relevant question.
Resolution: When previewing the item, the answers will now remain in the correct order, therefore showing the correct response to each question.

ID: 17394
Issue: When viewing the same item in the Question Summary screen in Test Administration and the Item Performance information in the Reporting screen, the Discrimination Index values are not always the same.
Resolution: The calculations used to calculate DI in the two screens have been aligned to ensure consistent values across the different sections of Surpass.

Issue: When moving between screens in the Analytical Data tab in the Reporting section of Surpass, the filters reset back to one month.

Resolution: The filter now stays the same through each level of Reporting, despite moving between screens.