As the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact how aspiring architects earn their licensing credentials, the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) has announced that it will begin remote examinations for the Architect Registration Exam (ARE) on November 16th, 2020.
The shift will allow a growing backlog of ARE candidates who have been unable to complete their examinations to work toward those goals despite the persistence of testing center closures across many states. While additional guidance for test takers is due to be released by NCARB in mid-September, NCARB explains that "content and division structure will not change" for the exams, though the specific format, number of questions, and other aspects may change to accommodate online exam proctoring.
"However, several elements of the exam’s delivery will be updated to enhance ARE security, make the ARE more efficient, and support online delivery—including navigation, breaks, the number of questions per division, and overall testing time per division," the organization writes.
NCARB continues, "These changes—which have been validated by independent psychometricians (or testing experts)—will ensure the exam continues to measure candidates’ ability to protect the public. The ARE won’t be “easier,” although candidates will benefit from greater flexibility and accessibility. NCARB will provide detailed information regarding any policy changes in late-September."
In order to take the ARE remotely, test takers will need a private testing area, a computer loaded with Prometric’s testing browser, a live audio and video feed, and a high-speed internet connection.
News of the shift to online testing comes as NCARB moves to switch testing providers for the ARE. The current provider, Prometric, will be dropped in favor of PSI starting in summer 2021.
24 Comments
Good to know.
I'll look forward to the online proctoring.
How's the studying going?
Resuming shortly (This week). It's just getting the money together.
Clarity: It's just getting the money together to schedule for the exam. Anyway, thanks for asking.
You went and got your thread nuked where I first offered it, but my offer to help pay for passed exams still stands. I know it doesn't help you pay for them initially, but I also floated a solution for that (get a job at a firm so you can do AXP ... bonus is that it earns you a paycheck which can help pay the initial cost).
Sounds good. I will definitely take ya up on the offer. If congress gets off their dead asses and pass a bill with a stimulus check like they have been talking about for months already, I'll use the money towards the exam for the upfront payments for the exams. The getting a job at a firm so I can do AXP, I am open to doing although COVID-19 surely disrupted that. The good thing is I only have to pay for one exam division at a time.
Money secured for all the exam divisions and CPBD exam with some room for retakes and other associated fees. It is just a matter of waiting a little bit for the online proctoring.
In addition to Remote testing AIA members should no longer be the get-keepers of who get's licensed and who does not.The industry should reflect underlying demographics with schools taking a proactive role in not only recruiting students but also making sure that they follow through licensing and internship requirements.
Schools can create their own single practice that acts as a pipeline for licensing with Alumni volunteering their time and projects to facilitate unbiased licensing together with ARE prepping.Alumni who participate in the program will then be giving a front line in school related projects and state projects which can sometimes go upwards in billions of dollars.USC has started the journey.They could do more.
https://dailytrojan.com/2020/0...
clearly you have no idea how architecture licensing works. "AIA acting as gatekeepers?" gtfo.
lol ... AIA's role in licensing?
If you're going to continually harp about the same point you should at least know who to direct it at. Your beef should be with NCARB and possibly NAAB, not AIA. They all deserve criticism, but make it targeted.
BTW, good article, but not at all suggesting what you said about alumni volunteering time and money to facilitate unbiased licensing in exchange for priority in securing projects.
Exam in your own house? How do you prevent cheating and video recording of test questions? Simply having one person monitoring you full time is not enough.
time to make the exam open book; this is the case for engineers. it's ridiculous to think that it's necessary to memorize all of this knowledge. half of our job is knowing where to look for resources, not being able to cite pieces of code by memorization, for example.
I'd be in favor of open book. It's a double-edged sword though. On the one hand, it would be more realistic for what it is like to practice and eliminate the complaints about the resources NCARB provides you in the exam. On the other hand, people would waste too much time looking everything up and complain they don't have enough time to complete the exam.
With the CPBD exam (open book), there just isn't the amount of time to look everything up and pass. The ARE can be that way but that's a policy that I doubt NCARB is changing any time soon because the states can end up dropping the ARE if they don't agree with the changes.
EA, i'd rather measure candidates ability to manage their time than their ability to memorize knowledge they probably won't end up using; much more useful in practice
square, I totally agree. I can just hear the whiners complaining now.
"people would waste too much time looking everything up" Yeah I think doing this would warrant a non-pass. Competence, imo, isn't knowing everything but knowing how to find it quickly & efficiently.
I just hope they don't make the in person test tighter in time in order to keep things consistent. I am already a slow reader because English is not my native language. And seriously, how does one prevent some monitor sharing and answer giving behind the webcam. One scenario may be a group of Pro ARE test takers behind the computer & webcam giving answers on marker boards. Prometric even inspects your eyeglasses for high tech hidden camera.
360 degree view of the room before test-taking begins and NO ONE else can be in the room. One thing is they can require the computer to station to be up against the wall. They will do a check via the online.
Go here for information from Prometric: https://www.prometric.com/proproctorcandidate
https://vimeo.com/429346554
PSI does this as well via their own online proctoring platform. They require that no one is in the room and doors to that room closed. In fact, they will probably want a room with a single door into it and that they can see the door and that your computer is stationed in such a manner that no one can be behind the computer.
Is it foolproof? No. However, it may make things more difficult. We are professionals, right? Why should we endeavor in such an act that can cause you to have your license revoked if found out later that you cheated on the exam to get licensed and if found out before or after, you would be barred from licensure and taking the ARE in the future.... potentially forever. Why jeopardize your career aspiration you worked so hard for. As professionals, we should be beyond what we call in academic vernacular, "cheating". I am not under the delusion of thinking everyone is moral, ethical, and professional.
Rhetorical point: If you are not, you may want to reconsider the idea of taking the exam or licensure altogether because you are not a right fit to being a licensed professional.
Jay1122, you are to use a room like a spare bedroom or small office room. The appropriate room for such testing should be a room with ONE door in. If more than one door, all doors to be closed and viewable from the webcam. Use a high definition webcam. Logitech makes plenty of good ones. Your computer should be on a desk up against a wall so no one can physically be behind the camera. They will pan the room. As a policy, you do not leave the view of the camera at any time during the test. You may go through a break period and upon returning to test, you may be required to undergo the check-in procedures for verification and checking the room before you resume with the exam. They literally have you pan the web camera around the room 360 degrees and your desk. It has to be a private room where cheating would be close to impossible to do.
In fact, you only need one person monitoring you. In a proctoring test center, you have multiple proctors in the room because they are monitoring a room full of test-takers not just you. They also are probably recording the whole test session as well so even if not detected immediately, they can still detect via review procedures of testing irregularities. For goodness sake, lets not screw everyone over by trying to cheat.
Bottom Line Point: You are not just screwing yourself by cheating but everyone else by doing that. People even manage to cheat at Prometric test centers so it isn't 100% foolproof but we can at least deter cheating. You would not be testing in the same room as other people when it comes to online proctoring. That's a universal rule for online proctoring. Even a dorm room is unacceptable if you have roommates or any other person in the room during the whole testing session including check-in and checkout procedures.
Architects who think memorization is the end-all of intelligence are the ones who ask about the "ladder rule" for guard rails and argue with you about the code that changed last cycle since they no longer read the code since they memorized it in 2002.
Honestly ... I'm just going to keep taking them in-person.
In my opinion, I'm glad they are still providing the option for taking the exam at test centers. Not everyone has a suitable location at home to take the exam. Some people may be close enough to a test center that isn't a big deal to get to one and for some, they are familiar with the process if they already start. I'm glad they are making the ARE exam more accessible through the flexibility of exam delivery (via test centers and remote/online proctoring).
Look forward to you passing those exam divisions, Bench.
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