The Central Office for Driver licenses (Dutch: Centraal Bureau voor Rijvaardigheidsbewijzen (CBR)) is the organization appointed by the department of infrastructure that assesses driving skills and medical fitness of drivers (car, truck, boat, and plane). The CBR has 5 offices, 54 practical exam locations and 20 theoretical exam locations. In total almost 2.000.000 exams are held each year; more than 900.000 are theoretical exams. The majority of these theoretical exams are car driving exams.
Until 2014, the main part of these theoretical exams were audio-visual and collective which are held at a certain time at a certain location. All candidates are exposed to yes/no questions referring to a series of slides and videos.
In line with the ongoing individualization of services in our society, CBR wanted to change the old process of registering, planning and taking of all theoretical exams collectively. Instead of the collective exams it should be possible to take an exam individually whenever a candidate wishes to.
This has the following benefits:
Trifork and partner Cito have been creating a new online test system. The new assessment platform for CBR allows the driving student to take an exam individually at a time that is convenient for them.
The system is based on Trifork’s QTI (Question Test Interoperability) Assessment Delivery Engine, using a world-wide Open Standard. The client lockdown allows secure, high-stake digital assessments by making it impossible to start up other applications or browse on the internet while taking a test, thereby reducing the incidence of fraud. The whole system is completely touch-based (including a touch-onscreen keyboard) and displayed on a high resolution touchscreen. It includes features such as a calculator, reference tools and a time-based functionality (i.e. to complete the exam in a certain time).
Trifork also integrated a text-to-speech functionality for candidates with reading difficulties. In addition, we delivered an on-premise proctoring exam monitor which helps supervisors to manage the active exam sessions at a certain location (eg: who is taking which exam, how much time is spent and left, how many questions are answered and left). Furthermore, the supervisor can pause, abort and resume individual exams or all the exams that are active at a particular location.
This project was a European tender, fixed-price and fixed-date. Not all requirements specified in the tender where implemented in the end because new requirements popped up during implementation. Because Trifork used an agile approach the product owner had the freedom to decide at every sprint which functionality was to be implemented and which functionality would be given up.
CBR has done a major overhaul of their process, and as a result, more (individual) exams are taken in less time. Further, less exam locations need to be provided – a significant cost saving. The centerpiece is Trifork’s QTI Assessment Delivery Engine. The exam monitor is also supported by software created by Trifork. The monitor represents a major part of the process related to supervising the exams. The goals of CBR for efficiency, fraud prevention and service to the customer have easily been met.
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