The Test Community.Network

Tim Burnett
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Welcome to the Test Community Network, your go-to weekly update on everything about assessment and testing. Tim Burnett and special guests will help you find the latest chances to explore and connect in the diverse world of assessment and testing. Discover new events, webinars, and podcasts, plus get inspiration from the Test Community Network marketplace. For more information visit: https://www.testcommunity.network

  1. 11h ago

    20th August 2026 Global Weekly News Update from the Assessment Community

    This week's global roundup covers exam security under the spotlight — from AI-enabled cheating and leaked papers to GPS-tracked test transport — alongside developments in proctoring fairness, assessment platform innovation, and the growing push for stronger regulation in the age of AI. We also feature job opportunities, conference registration, and a significant UK government tender for AI skills. Disclaimer: The Test Community Network curates links to third-party content for informational purposes only. We have no control over the content, availability, or accuracy of external websites and do not endorse the views, products, or services they contain. Linking to a third-party site does not imply any association with or endorsement by its operators. You access external links at your own discretion.

  2. Aug 12

    13th August 2026 Global Weekly News Update from the Assessment Community

    This week's collection covers 24 stories from across the global assessment landscape. AI continues to dominate the headlines — South Korea's Insurance Institute has moved to 100% AI-generated exam questions, colleges in the US are quietly integrating AI into admissions, and universities from Edinburgh to Sheffield Hallam are wrestling with whether policing AI use is even worth the effort. Meanwhile, test security remains a persistent challenge worldwide, with large-scale fraud cases in Thailand and West Africa, smart device cheating in Cambodia, and a high-tech racket involving ChatGPT and hidden cameras in India. On the regulatory front, Ofqual has fined OTHM £25,000 for malpractice investigation failures, and the new US bar exam rollout has hit turbulence. There's also a thought-provoking piece on whether students still learn better from paper, a podcast exploring the future of credentialing, and research charting assessment's evolution from foundational ideas to systems thinking. — Disclaimer: The Test Community Network curates and summarises third-party content for informational purposes only. We do not control, endorse, or accept responsibility for the accuracy, content, or availability of external sites linked in this collection. Views expressed in linked articles, podcasts, and reports are those of their respective authors and publishers, not the Test Community Network. Readers access third-party links entirely at their own risk.

  3. Aug 5

    6th August 2026 Global Weekly News Update from the Assessment Community

    This week's global news roundup takes in a bar exam cancellation in Washington State and the fallout that followed, Ofqual's £150,000 fine against EAL for repeated qualification failures, and a cyber-attack affecting over 600,000 records at England's Department for Education. Elsewhere, WAEC withholds more than 167,000 WASSCE results over malpractice, Kenya rolls out blockchain-verified exam certificates, and universities continue to move away from AI detectors in favour of redesigned assessments. Read on for the full round-up. Disclaimer: The articles, podcasts and other content featured in this collection are curated from third-party sources and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Test Community Network. Links are provided for informational purposes only, and the Test Community Network is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or content of external websites. Readers should verify any information independently before relying on it.

  4. Jul 29

    30th July: Why Better Assessment Data Isn't Improving Schools with Amina Afif

    In this episode of the Test Community Network podcast, I sat down with Amina Afif, Executive Secretary of FLIP+ and The International Association for Educational Assessment 2026 Conference Ambassador for Western Europe.Amina has spent twenty years working across Luxembourg, Seychelles, and international organisations like the OECD and IEA. Her perspective is unlike anyone else I've spoken to on the pod. She sits right at the crossroads of assessment design and what actually happens when that data lands on a school leader's desk.We got into:📊 Why even the richest countries still can't close the gap between good data and good decisions🤖 Norway's AI ban, Sweden's phone restrictions, and why blaming the tool misses the point🤝 Why trust, not technology, is the factor that determines whether assessment actually improves learningWe'll both be at IAEA 2026 in Toronto this September. If you're going, come and say hello.Register for the IAEA Conference: https://iaea2026.org/hashtag#Assessment hashtag#EdTech hashtag#EducationData hashtag#IAEA2026 hashtag#FLIPplus hashtag#TestCommunityNetwork hashtag#SchoolImprovement hashtag#AIinEducation

  5. Jul 29

    30th July 2026 Global Weekly News Update from the Assessment Community

    See the collection in full: https://testcommunity.network/collections/30th-july-2026-weekly-global-news This collection spans the key themes shaping the testing and assessment landscape: AI's growing impact on exams and academic integrity, persistent exam security challenges across India and the US, regulatory shifts affecting credentialing bodies and school assessment in the UK, and emerging market trends in K-12 testing. Podcasts and thought leadership pieces explore whether traditional exams remain fit for purpose, how HR is adapting to a changing world of work, and what new approaches to assessment design look like in an AI-driven era. Disclaimer This collection is curated by the Test Community Network (TCN) for informational purposes only. The views, opinions, and content expressed in the linked articles, podcasts, and resources are those of the respective authors, publishers, and content creators and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the Test Community Network. TCN does not endorse, verify, or accept responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any third-party content linked herein. All third-party trademarks and content remain the property of their respective owners. Links are provided for convenience and educational interest; their inclusion does not imply affiliation with or endorsement by TCN.

  6. Jul 22

    23rd July 2026 Global Weekly News Update from the Assessment Community

    This week's round-up spans the shifting global landscape of assessment, from tougher anti-cheating measures in Spain and a spy-style pen-cam racket in Punjab, to fresh debates about AI's role in authoring items and shaping student motivation. We look at test anxiety and its effect on performance, industrial action at AQA over pay, and licensing changes for optometrists in Kentucky. Elsewhere, questions of fairness surface repeatedly — Ontario's dynamic online maths test, single-date entrance exams and educational inequality, and exam-driven protests in India. Add in facial recognition tied to exam eligibility, the EU AI Act's implications for schools, and the hidden costs of in-house exam printing, and you have a snapshot of an assessment world grappling with security, technology, equity and reform all at once. Disclaimer The articles featured in this collection are curated from third-party sources and are shared for information and discussion purposes only. Links to external websites are provided for convenience; the Test Community Network does not own, control, endorse, or take responsibility for the content, accuracy, opinions, or availability of any third-party material. The views expressed in the linked articles are those of their respective authors and publishers, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Test Community Network. We accept no liability for any loss or damage arising from reliance on external content. If you believe any link is broken, outdated, or inappropriate, please contact us.

  7. Jul 22

    23rd July: The Social Lift, How Assessment Reform Is Reshaping Central Asia with Vali Huseyn

    Full News Collection: https://testcommunity.network/collections/23rd-july-2026-weekly-global-news Read the Article with Vali: https://testcommunity.network/the-social-lift In this week's episode, Tim Burnett chats with Vali Huseyn, Regional Assessment Expert for Central Asia and the Caucasus, who works with governments and ministries across the region to reform large-scale assessment. They discuss: Why Kazakhstan has become Central Asia's assessment pioneer — digitising exams while shifting the culture from knowledge-based to competency-based assessmentHow Kazakhstan's National Testing Center solved the digital infrastructure bottleneck by splitting university admission into five sittings across the year, giving candidates multiple attemptsAssessment as a "social lift" — how fair, merit-based assessment drives social mobility and sends a wider message about justice in societyVali brings deep regional knowledge, along with the linguistic and cultural fluency to understand what each jurisdiction actually needs. He explains why Kazakhstan's heavy investment in higher education — some twenty-five to thirty new campuses, including international branches — created the push for modernisation, and how different countries handle the relationship between school-leaving and university admission exams. He also shares why he's taking the themes of transparency and fairness to the IAEA conference in Toronto this September, and offers a memorable reflection on what these gatherings really offer: the rare chance to travel far in your own thoughts, like a long journey with different stops along the way. Register for the IAEA conference in Toronto: https://www.iaea2026.org Connect with Vali Huseyn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/valihuseyn/ Connect with Tim Burnett on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tburnett/ If you would like to join Tim on a future episode or sponsor the Test Community Network then get in touch with Tim to schedule a call: https://calendly.com/educationtech/15min-teams-chat Events: https://www.testcommunity.network/upcoming-events Podcasts: https://www.testcommunity.network/podcasts Marketplace: https://www.testcommunity.network/marketplace Subscribe to the Test Community Network here: https://www.testcommunity.network

  8. Jul 16

    16th July: The Limitations of AQA's AI Authoring Research, with Tim Burnett

    In this week's episode, Tim Burnett goes solo to dig into AQA's new research report, Evaluating AI‑Authored Assessment Items for High-Stakes Exams, and to challenge the way it approached generating items with AI. Drawing on his own research sprint and recent workshops with awarding organisations, he sets out what the report gets right, where he thinks it falls short, and what it really takes to author good assessment items with generative AI. They discuss: Why testing AI "out of the box" misses the point — the success of AI item generation lives in the process (the prompts, the harness, the expert input, the source anchoring), not the model alone. As Tim puts it, judging the items without considering how they were made is like comparing holidays without asking how they were booked.Where the research genuinely shines — the analysis of command words and item difficulty (with one-mark items faring better than three-mark items), the flagging of mark schemes as a major risk, and the useful concept of "surface plausibility" that can lull reviewers into missing confidently-wrong content.The practical techniques that actually make AI authoring work — capturing expert insight early, using personas for the minimum competent candidate, anchoring generation to precise source material to avoid hallucinations, checking for test-wiseness, and building "effort in the loop" by having SMEs answer the generated item themselves.Tim also unpacks why so many awarding organisations are frustrated with vendor item-generation platforms (old models, slow output, no saved prompts and no audit trail), the important distinction between the assessment manager's technical role and the SME's domain expertise, and why AQA's own conclusion — that generative AI is best treated as a drafting accelerator within a controlled assessment lifecycle, not as an autonomous author — is spot on. He rounds off by introducing the new MCQ Leaderboard, his community project challenging the available AI models to see which produce the highest-quality items, and invites assessment professionals to contribute their own scores. Read the AQA report, Evaluating AI‑Authored Assessment Items for High-Stakes Exams: https://aqaglobal.com/news/can-ai-write-exams-report Understanding AI — A Guide for Assessment Professionals and Awarding Organisation Leaders (TCN, Edition 1, June 2026): https://testcommunity.network/download/PFX68LV6MGBP A Practical Guide to Authoring Test Items with Artificial Intelligence (March 2026, Edition 1): https://testcommunity.network/download/28N3NT Try the MCQ Leaderboard: https://leaderboard.testcommunity.network/ Connect with Tim Burnett on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tburnett/ If you would like to join Tim on a future episode or sponsor the Test Community Network then get in touch with Tim to schedule a call: https://calendly.com/educationtech/15min-teams-chat Events: https://www.testcommunity.network/upcoming-events Podcasts: https://www.testcommunity.network/podcasts Marketplace: https://www.testcommunity.network/marketplace Subscribe to the Test Community Network here: https://www.testcommunity.network

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Welcome to the Test Community Network, your go-to weekly update on everything about assessment and testing. Tim Burnett and special guests will help you find the latest chances to explore and connect in the diverse world of assessment and testing. Discover new events, webinars, and podcasts, plus get inspiration from the Test Community Network marketplace. For more information visit: https://www.testcommunity.network

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