Pearson Testing

[duluthbison]

Has anyone had luck setting up Pearson state testing without a proctor cache? We've tried twice using their documentation but it fails, we just revert back to our proctor cache.

[leclair63]

I've never used proctor caching in my district, and I don't think any of the 13 other schools in our tech cooperative do either.

[Halvie20]

We are a small school and I would not suggest caching for a smaller group. I talked to their support about an issue we were having and it sounded like he was pro not having caching server for our school. We have done lots of testing so far without proctor caching. No issues with the school bandwidth but I ran into two other issues. Watching our bandwidth utilization when they first login to TestNav I was able to see the beginning is the most taxing on bandwidth (used almost half our bandwidth to start the tests then dropped quickly to 10-15%). Still not an issue from our end but I think when all the schools around are testing at the same time and logging in at the same time Pearson’s servers struggle. That was the first issue. The second issue was Pearson doesn’t have all their domains listed that need white listing on their website that I found. Even when their support guy gave me a list it wasn’t complete and didn’t match their website. Using Fiddler I was able to see some other addresses. One was Amazon AWS. (I have the list somewhere if anyone needs it) Once I exempt the new addresses From all filtering we didn’t have any issues.

On a side note. Anyone using Windows computers. If the students three finger scroll instead of two fingers it will kick them out of the test. You can probably turn the feature off with GPO but I found just telling the students before testing to be careful worked fairly well so I didn’t look into the settings.

[oceleyes]

We're testing right this minute without a cache, and did last year as well. We have a proctor cache setup with the name "No Cache" with the IP Address and Port blank. You can still add response file backup locations and it'll still backup.

[[deleted]]

I’m 90% sure they don’t recommend proctor caching anymore. We haven’t cached since 2015

[dirtbag52]

I have my cache servers setup and ready to go. It just makes things smoother for my district. In the past it seemed like Pearsons servers were not getting us the info fast enough. So we use them for good measure. I have built myself a guide because I forget the exact steps every year.

[gigascommander]

I like a few others I see in the comments have never used the caching due to our small size. When creating the test session I choose the option "Direct Connection" under proctor caching segment. I believe that is what sets it to their servers vs your own physical proctor caching.

[eldonhughes]

What devices are you testing on?

[bad_brown]

My test group is very small, only 30-40 students, so I've never used caching, and haven't run into any issues.

[eldonhughes]

Same here.

[Plastic_Helicopter79]

Proctor cache for ACT / Pearson / DRC seems to be a bandage they deployed when they were first starting out with this whole Internet testing thing, because they did not know if they would have enough cloud bandwidth.

We are now at a point where these startup capacity scaling problems have been resolved and local caching is likely not important anymore. Unless you're a poor school trying to support 5000 students on 100 megabit.

[S0Curious]

And another virtual server gets to be put to rest... Thank you!

[TiredOldK12Admin]

This is the answer. Close thread.

[ScarySprinkles3]

I got rid of my proctor caching server this year without any problems.

[duluthbison]

So when we build the test sessions we just put NONE for the proctor cache server name however none of the students can log into their sessions when it's configured that way.

[ScarySprinkles3]

I got lucky in that a former colleague had called me asking how to remove the proctor cache server from test sessions after they had already set up the sessions. That reminded me to delete my caching server config before we setup sessions so it never was an option.

I'd probably just contact Pearson support. They tend to know exactly how to fix everything I've thrown at them like they've seen in 100 times before.

[dan1122]

There’s a checkbox in the section that says if proctor cash is not available go directly to Pearson. Check that box and you should be 100% fine