News and Information for providers of assessment products and services and the industry they serve

JULY 2020
Volume 20
Issue 2

In This Issue...

  1. ATP Prepares to Launch First Virtual Global Event
  2. ATP Advocates for the Testing Industry During Pandemic
  3. ATP Launches New World of Testing Digital Series
  4. Legal Alert: Remote Proctoring Court Decision in the Netherlands
  5. Legal Alert: EU Court Issues Ruling on Privacy Dispute
  6. ATP Publishes Video Surveillance Guidelines
  7. ATP Submits Comments to U.S. Copyright Office
  8. CEO Panel Video Released
  9. Call for 2021 ATP Awards Nominations is Open
  10. Call for 2021 ATP Board of Directors is Open

ATP Prepares to Launch First Virtual Global Event

ATP's first Virtual Global Conference will be a 'round the clock event, with programming beginning in the early morning hours (U.S. eastern time) and running until late into the night in order to accommodate all of ATP's Global Regions. And with ATP's new investment in Association TV, an online conference platform, all of the conference content will be recorded, indexed and available for replay.  [Read more here...]


ATP Advocates for the Testing Industry During Pandemic

"The pandemic, the cancellation of in-person conferences and standardized testing, shelter-in-place orders, the cancellation of classes from primary schools to higher education, has all had a chilling effect on the assessment industry.  But now is not the time for fear-of-the-future, or for paralysis to set in," said ATP CEO William G. Harris, Ph.D.,  "If anything, the work of ATP and its members has become more important than ever." [Read more here...]


ATP Launches New World of Testing Digital Series

The power of novel coronavirus to transform the nature of commerce and disrupt settled business operations is evident everywhere, including the global assessment community. The Association of Test Publishers' (ATP) and the 2020 Global Conference Committee introduce as a lead up to the Virtual Global Conference (September 14 - 18, 2020), the "New World of Testing (NWT)" digital series. This series showcases the assessment community ingenuity to address unprecedented challenges as well as a myriad of concerns that saddles new, mostly, digital solutions. [Read more here...]

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Legal Alert: Remote Proctoring Court Decision in the Netherlands

Over the past two months a legal drama has been playing out in The Netherlands over the ability of the country's universities to use remote proctoring to monitor the validity and fairness of online exams and enable students to continue to progress their education while the institutions confront the inability of holding in-person classes/exams because of COVID-19.   While no ruling has yet been made by the Dutch Data Protection Authority, on June 11, a local court in Amsterdam ruled that in the limited circumstances presented involving the University of Amsterdam ("UvA"), remote proctoring processing of student personal information "is not unlawful."  This decision is potentially useful, but any testing organization using video surveillance needs to understand the full scope of what the decision means --  and what it does not mean. [Read more here...]

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Legal Alert: EU Court Issues Ruling on Privacy Dispute

On July 16, 2020, the European Court of Justice issued a ruling on a longstanding privacy dispute around sending personal data from Europe to the United States. This case stemmed from a complaint to the Irish Data Protection Commissioner by an Austrian citizen against Facebook for improperly transferring his personal data under the applicable Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) and under the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield (Schrems II). [Read more here...]

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ATP Publishes Video Surveillance Guidelines

The International Privacy Subcommittee of the Association of Test Publishers (ATP) Security Committee has prepared this Guide, Privacy Guidance When Using Video In The Testing Industry, to help the testing industry understand the appropriate use of video monitoring and recording while conducting tests - and to prepare the necessary documentation to defend such uses. The Guide also provides a set of recommendations for developing documentation and good practices to enable use of video monitoring in light of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR") and privacy laws/regulations in other jurisdictions.[Read more here...]

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ATP Submits Comments to U.S. Copyright Office

On May 8, 2020 the US Copyright Office (Library of Congress) published an Interim Rule and Request for Comment on new definition for the term "secure test" due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  This definition will enable the testing industry to use on a temporary basis the secure test registration procedures for tests that are remotely proctored "to accommodate the ongoing national emergency."  85 Fed. Reg. 27296 (May 8, 2020).Comments on this Notice were submitted by ATP on June 8, 2020. [Read more here...]

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CEO Panel Video Released

"Education is sacred. It's really what changes the world."  Those were the words of Law School Admission Council's ("LSAC") CEO Kellye Testy in a recent online webinar offered by the Association of Test Publishers, which brought together a group of top industry leaders to make the case for testing and assessment in a challenged, COVID-19 world. Testy's words were followed-up by an eloquent dialogue on issues impacting the industry by a panel of leaders representing a diverse collection of testing organizations.[Read more here...]

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Call for 2021 ATP Awards Nominations is Open

ATP Award Nominations are now being accepted.  The ATP Awards Committee is accepting nominations for ATP's two prestigious awards: The Career Achievement Award and the Award for Professional Contributions and Service to Testing. These awards are open to non-members - but you do need to be an ATP member to make a nomination. The deadline for nominations is October 31, 2020. [Read more here...]

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Call for 2021 ATP Board of Directors is Open

The Association of Test Publishers (ATP) invites members to nominate individuals for the 2021 ATP Board of Directors.   You must be a regular member in good standing to make a nomination. The Deadline for nominations is Monday, August 31, 2020.[Read more here...]