2022 Programme
Day 1 – Thursday 6 October
9am onwards
Everyone welcome
12pm
Registration
12.30pm
Lunch
1.15pm
Opening welcome session
Bob Gomersall – Chairman, BTL
Keynote
1.20pm
Keynote: Jamie Andrew OBE
Mountains of adversity: Overcoming challenges in a disrupted landscape
Mountaineer Jamie is the first quadruple amputee in the world to climb Kilimanjaro and complete a marathon. After losing his limbs following five days in a mountain-summit storm in 1999, he learned to walk again and overcame adversity to take up skiing, triathlons and more mountains.
In his session he will talk about how you can learn valuable lessons to overcome challenges and successfully manage change.
Key points to help you achieve your goals will include:
- How to find the positive in every situation when facing challenges
- The importance of not facing problems alone – allowing others to help you
- How to dream big but start with small goals and work up
Key messages from the session:
- Throw yourself into achieving your goals – believe that you can achieve them!
- It is the journey that counts
- It doesn’t matter if you fail some of your goals because you can learn from that experience and try again
Plenary session
2pm
Celebrating 15 years of the Surpass Community
Andy McAnulla – President, BTL Surpass
Sonya Whitworth – Managing Director, BTL
Sonya Whitworth and Andy McAnulla will reflect on some of the challenges we have overcome in the last 15 years, and milestones we have reached in that time together with the Surpass Community.
Plenary session
2.15pm
Surpass Community-led innovations
Phil Cowen – Business Change Manager, OCR
Martin Mewis – e-Submission Delivery Manager, WJEC
Janet Legge – Director, ACT
Learn about a range of recent features from the Surpass Community members who led them, and the benefits that came from collaborating together throughout the design process.
2.55pm
Networking and coffee
General stream
3.15pm
Assessment for Learning & Candidate Feedback
Ben Rockcliffe – Deputy Director for Assessment, Alphaplus
Graeme Clark – Head of Digital Assessment Services, SQA
Ian Brumfitt – Chief Operating Officer, BTL
In this session, discover how Surpass Community members AlphaPlus, and SQA use Surpass to deliver assessments to candidates that focus on continuous learning and feedback.
Specialist stream
3.15pm
New features in Surpass, including Customisable Question Types (CQTs)
Nicola Bennett – Application Support Specialist, City & Guilds
Mudassar Iqbal – Product Owner, BTL
Hannah Rowe – Assessment Manager, AlphaPlus
A regular programme of development updates is at the heart of open-platform Surpass. Hear why BTL created certain features for some customers, the problems this solved and how the new functionality is used.
Don’t miss this opportunity to see BTL’s suite of Customisable Question Types (CQTs). Hear from Nicola Bennett, Application Support Specialist at City & Guilds, as she talks about how they have helped her organisation.
There will also be an opportunity to get some ‘hands on’ experience of the CQTs currently available, so you can leave full of ideas for how you might make use of this unique framework for your future exam series!
4pm
Surpass Innovation Award
The Innovation Award highlights the fantastic examples of innovation at the heart of the Surpass Community.
This year’s nominations are:
- Alphaplus
- Chartered Professional Accountants Canada (CPA Canada)
- Michigan Language Assessment
- TWI
Plenary session
4.15pm
Closing plenary panel: The direction of the assessment industry
Jim Crawford – Chief Commercial Officer and Company Director, BTL
Patrick Craven – Director of Policy, Strategic Partnerships and Stakeholder Engagement, City & Guilds
Lynne Frederickson – Project Manager, MLA
Tanya Hollister – Associate Director, Examinations at Chartered Professional Accountants Canada (CPA Canada)
Colin Hughes – CEO, AQA
Celebrating the collaboration that is the heart of the Surpass Community, hear from respected industry leaders across a range of sectors (GQs, Vocational, Professional and Language Testing) on the current challenges they face.
Discover how their respective sectors are expected to evolve, primarily from an onscreen testing perspective, over the next five years and put your questions to the panel.
5.20pm
Closing remarks
Keith Myers – Chief Executive Officer, BTL
7.30pm
Networking and dinner
Meet representatives from Surpass teams and network with other delegates and industry experts from around the world, at our evening event.
Enjoy a relaxed evening including karaoke, cocktail making and buffet dinner, at Revolucion de Cuba (Albert Dock, 22 Edward Pavilion, Liverpool).
Before the evening event, you could also enjoy a fascinating hour-long walking tour of Liverpool. Explore the city’s story, and discover its grand architecture and stunning historic Waterfront. The tour begins at 6.30pm from the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza, and ends at your evening venue within Royal Albert Dock. You can pre-book the tour so you don’t miss out, or ask at the Conference registration desk when you arrive.
Day 2 – Friday 7 October
9am
Opening welcome session
Plenary session
9.10am
Services for the Surpass Community
Paul Edelblut – Vice President of Cognitive Computing, Vantage Labs
Ashleigh Whittle – Head of Supporting Services, BTL
Miriam Broome – Online Invigilation Manager, BTL
Lana Pitcher – Senior Examinations Officer, The Bar Standards Board
This session is an opportunity to hear from Surpass Community members. Discover how they use Surpass supporting services to assist in the creation and delivery of their assessments.
Including information on online proctoring, Test Centre Network, test development and test conversion/publishing, learn how BTL services can assist you with item authoring, scheduling, and delivery.
Also in this session, Paul Edelblut from Vantage AI, will be demonstrating live just how easy and effective it can be to start automatically marking long-form item responses with their groundbreaking integrated technology.
10.30am
Networking and coffee
Plenary session
11am
Stories from the Surpass Community
Ben Newby – Chief Digital Officer, WJEC
Lynne Frederickson – Project Manager, MLA
Robbie Furter – PAEA
A favourite of the Surpass Community year after year – hear from a trio of Surpass Community organisations as they share their successes and challenges from the past twelve months. This session covers topics ranging from the implementation of new processes and the migration of items, to how to break the bonds between paper and on-screen assessments.
General stream
12 noon
Delivering accessible tests in Surpass
Gavin Evans – Co-Founder and Director of Operations, Digital Accessibility Centre Ltd (DAC)
Emma Hall – Head of Business Development, BTL
Adam Norris – Accessibility Developer, BTL
Mike Taylor – Senior Accessibility Analyst, DAC
In this session, hear from Digital Accessibility Centre (DAC) on the importance of accessibility, including legislation you need to be aware of, how to organise an audit and what user groups to take into consideration. You’ll also hear from Surpass’s dedicated accessibility development team as they provide an update on our recent accessibility improvements, talk about good practice guidance and share information about future plans in this area.
Hands-on stream
12 noon
Collaborate as a team while working remotely in Surpass
Ashleigh Whittle – Head of Supporting Services, BTL
Amanda Dainis – CEO and Lead Psychometrician, Dainis & Company, Inc.
Learn how Surpass can manage the creation of your content remotely, through the use of Tasks functionality.
Specialist stream
12 noon
Innovations for the next technological leaps in testing
David Sime – Riiot Digital
Join special guests from Riiot Digital in a session that is sure to pique the interest of even the most sceptical technophobe, and is absolutely unmissable for anybody excited to get hands on with technology for testing and recording results.
Featuring an introduction to tactile testing technology used to replicate high-risk environments, and affordable alternatives for schools and other groups, see how Riiot is changing the way people think about measuring physical skills like welding and surgery.
Then, when you’ve seen the demonstration, try it for yourself in one of Riiot’s specially created demonstration units.
12.40pm
Lunch
General stream
1.30pm
NBME five years on – The evolution of Surpass Item Authoring and Banking
Jamie Saldutti – VP of Application Development, NBME
NBME is a non-profit assessment organisation centred on the assessment of US medical doctors. In this session, NBME’s VP of IT Application Development, Jamie Saldutti will share NBME’s journey to transition their subject matter experts and test development staff to Surpass for web-based item authoring, review, and banking.
NBME will explain why they selected Surpass, what they’ve learned through the implementation, and what remains to complete their transition to Surpass.
Hands-on stream
1.30pm
Delivering accessible exams: the test-taker perspective
Gavin Evans – Digital Accessibility Centre Ltd (DAC)
Emma Hall – Head of Business Development, BTL
Adam Norris – Accessibility Developer, BTL
Mike Taylor – Senior Accessibility Analyst, DAC
Martha Wright-Beattie – Junior Account Manager, BTL
This hands-on session is designed to raise awareness of the barriers that test takers can face. Explore the many ways that assistive technology and good design can help to overcome them.
Specialist stream
1.30pm
Beyond VR: try XR-based testing for yourself
Riiot Digital team
Riiot Digital present your opportunity to try the future of simulation-based testing for yourself in their bespoke welding simulator.
XR stands for ‘extended reality’, and a typical XR experience immerses you in the virtual environment (VR) and augments your surroundings.
Specially designed to mimic and record performance in hazardous environments without exposing the candidate to danger, Riiot’s tactile XR technology can be put to use in any number of situations including welding, surgery and more. This is the perfect way to round off your Surpass Conference and start looking ahead to the future!
See more of what this amazing tech can do in the video below.
General stream
2.20pm
New development feedback sessions: Test Creation designs
Gareth Hopkins – Assessment Solutions Specialist, BTL
Scott Flockton – Senior Solutions Architect , BTL
Ian Higgins – UX Design Team Lead, BTL
These feedback sessions are your chance to see mockups for the revamped Test Creation screens in Surpass. Have your say, and give your feedback on what you like or think could be improved upon.
Hands-on stream
2.20pm
Supporting content developers in Surpass
Ashleigh Whittle – Head of Supporting Services, BTL
Meranda Lokey – COO, Dainis and Company, Inc.
In this session, learn more about using Tasks in Surpass to track item or exam development and how this can help you to streamline processes.
3.05pm
Closing remarks
3.15pm