SIGUCCS 2016

The Kyoto Institute of Technology Speaking Test: English for the 21st Century is being developed to assess the speaking ability of undergraduate students learning English as a lingua franca. The ultimate goal of this project is to introduce the computer-based English speaking test into its entrance examination to the graduate programs. Despite the high-stakes nature of the test, it needs to be implemented in general-purpose PC classrooms mainly due to financial constraints. Given the confidentiality, integrity and availability required of the sound data in such a test, a secure data sharing system needs to be established between the PCs used for the test and the servers prepared for the external raters to carry out the online evaluation of the data.

Also, the computer rooms must resume normal operation soon after the test administration. We administered the first two large-scale feasibility tests (approximately 700 students each) in January and December 2015. In this presentation we will demonstrate the Windows custom image and secure data sharing tools we have developed for the tests and also report on how they were operated in the actual administration of the tests.