Association of British Dispensing Opticians

The Association of British Dispensing Opticians (ABDO) is the professional body for dispensing opticians and advances the profession in the UK and worldwide. Dispensing opticians are healthcare professionals registered with the General Optical Council, the statutory regulator for the optical professions. ABDO’s purpose is to support and represent its members, to promote awareness of their roles, to enable their professional development and to advance the profession as a whole. It offers qualifications for both dispensing opticians and contact lens opticians, requiring practical and written examinations.

Pre 2019, ABDO ran all exams on paper in test centres. This was resource-intensive and paper scripts had to be collected and circulated safely to markers. Spurred by the pandemic, ABDO sought to innovate and looked for an exam partner to help them through the changes necessary to move all paper-based processes online, including exam authoring, item banking, exam delivery and marking. It was crucial that the solution provided candidates with a high-level of accessibility for anyone with visual impairments or other access requirements. It had to deliver a professional exam experience for users, a greatly improved proctoring experience, while maintaining optimal security and exam integrity.

ABDO chose to partner with TestReach as the company provided a suite of features and services that suited its requirements. These included:

• A wide range of question types, with question creation workflows and item banking features.
• Comprehensive accessibility options, allowing exam time adjustments and providing exam canvases suitable for candidates with dyslexia or other visual impairments.
• Seamless online marking, facilitating the easy assignment of papers to markers, with full tracking and control.
• Live proctoring with experienced TestReach proctors who adhere to ABDO exam protocols.
• Robust and reliable exam delivery, where the exam and proctoring take place in one complete application, not in multiple browser windows.
• The ability to set up a personalised tutorial where candidates can familiarise themselves with a sample exam in TestReach.

ABDO has achieved its goal of moving all written examinations online, including question authoring, item banking, exam delivery with live proctoring and online marking. This has provided candidates with much greater flexibility as to when and where they take their examinations, while reducing the administrative burden and costs involved in organising large-scale exam provision at test centres.

Another benefit has been the ability to scale ABDO’s qualification offering, with the prospect of an apprenticeship for dispensing opticians meaning that there is the potential for student numbers to increase in future.

Mark Chandler, Head of Examinations and Registration at ABDO, says “There is an immeasurable benefit in not having to manage test centres and physical scripts, which generate significant costs and security issues. It has definitely been the right way to go and we made a great choice with TestReach. It has reduced the stress on candidates who can take their exam in the comfort of their home. On the administrative front, our exam authors have more scope to be inventive with different question types for exams. The exam booking process is quick, seamless and flows very well.”

Miranda Richardson, Head of Professional Qualifications and Education at ABDO, says, “With TestReach, the student experience is very good. There is an easy process to book exams and they can access a tutorial to familiarise themselves with the format, so it’s all very user-friendly. We like the fact that the proctoring is provided live by TestReach proctors in the same application as the exam itself, which is more secure, significantly reduces risk and it’s also very reassuring for exam candidates to meet a real person. The helpdesk staff are also responsive and clear if candidates have any questions. It’s been a real learning curve for us to get to this point, but it’s wonderful to have implemented this innovative change and see the invaluable benefits for candidates.”