Changes for Fall 2024 Testing

Based on feedback from educators and students during the spring 2024 testing window, we're making some adjustments for fall. Here's what's changing:

Student Experience

Changes to Policy

  • Clothing guidelines: Students may wear hooded shirts in the testing room, but their hoods must stay down during testing. Additionally, a student can bring a brimmed cap into the testing room, but may not wear it during testing.

Changes to the Bluebook™ Experience

  • Improved Mac device check in Bluebook: To avoid last-minute problems on test day, students testing on a Mac laptop or iPad will see an additional screen during exam setup to confirm that their device is ready to enter assessment mode.
  • More safeguards in Bluebook:
    • Improved error messaging: In the rare case where a student has two active tests available on their homepage (e.g., a primary test and a retest) and they attempt to start the test that doesn't match the room or proctor they're assigned, they'll receive a more descriptive error message with instructions to start the correct test.
    • Proctor approval to reenter testing: If Bluebook crashes or a student attempts to exit Bluebook during their test, the proctor will manually approve their reentry into testing from Test Day Toolkit.
  • Highlights and Notes tool in Bluebook: Our annotation tool has a brand-new look in Bluebook. The tool now appears between the reading material and the answer choices for each question so it's easier for students to see their highlights or notes. Students can also change the color of the highlight tool to organize their notes.

Testing Staff Experience

  • New professional login experience: You'll now log in to your professional account to access Test Day Toolkit through Okta.
  • Expanded print options for test tickets (coming in September): When test coordinators print their student sign-in tickets, they'll now have the option to print 1, 2, or 4 tickets per page.
  • No more clock requirements: It's recommended, but not required, that testing rooms include an accurate, working clock. This change will give schools more flexibility when selecting testing rooms.
  • Proctor approval for student reentry: If Bluebook crashes or a student exits Bluebook during testing, the proctor will receive a notification in Test Day Toolkit that the student has exited, and they can manually approve the student to resume testing if applicable.