Authoring

Up - Test Pilot v3 Next - Online Authoring

Test Pilot's authoring capabilities are designed to accommodate the way you work and to fit into any computing environment. We offer two ways to create assessments and surveys using Test Pilot.

• Online Authoring - when you have Internet access to the server with Test Pilot's web extension, you can author your assessments and surveys online. You can preview your work and make changes on the fly. It is, by far, the quickest and easiest method to author and deploy your questions. It also affords you the capability to try different formatting and presentation options with minimal effort. Anyone using a modern, version 4 or better Internet browser on under operating system (MacOS, Windows, UNIX, Linux, etc.) may author questions from anywhere an internet connection is available.
  
  
• Offline Authoring - Test Pilot Classic permits the use of the no-longer supported version 2 standalone database that can be installed on a laptop or home computer. With this standalone database, it is possible author anywhere and anytime. However, the feature set is far narrower than editing online, Furthermore, each time you wish to preview your work, you need to use the database's publishing method to create an assessment file and upload or copy it to your web server. The standalone authoring database runs under MacOS or Windows and files may be exchanged between platforms without need for conversion.

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Browser Requirements for Online Editing of Assessments

In order to ensure the most powerful, yet easy-to-use editing environment, Test Pilot's online authoring tools make extensive use of version 4 browser features such as frames and Javascript. We recommend using the very latest versions of popular web browsers such as Netscape or Internet Explorer. However, it should be possible to use Netscape version 3.02 or better or Internet Explorer 4.01 or later. Be sure that Javascript is enabled in your browser. Some installation may modify the browsers to disable Javascript.

Java is not Javascript

That is, Javascript is a scripting language built into most browsers and is not likely to cause your browser to crash. This should not be confused with client-side Java, a programming extension to web browsers that has been known to require considerable resources and cause browsers to crash. Test Pilot makes no use of browser Java.

Javascript Not Required for Assessment Participants

While there are optional features in Test Pilot which use Javascript in assessments delivered to participants (such as a countdown timer), participants in Test Pilot assessments can use most modern web browsers from Netscape v1.1 and Internet Explorer v3. Those browsers support the limited use of Javascript to allow Test Pilot's use of timers and the like. However, if you choose not to use those features flagged as requiring Javascript, you should be able to deliver an assessment to participants using virtually any web browser on any operating system platform.