Opening Slide Image Description: CASLI logo on white background. Test: Star G. Grieser, Director of Testing, CASLI Announcements November 16, 2020.
Image Description: White woman with brown hair tied back and black shirt is standing in front of a grey backdrop.
Transcript:
Hello everyone, my name is Star Grieser and I am the Director of Testing for the Center for the Assessment of Sign Language Interpretation, CASLI.
We have some very exciting news! The CASLI Generalist Performance Exam for Deaf Interpreters is ready for administration on our CASLI Exam System! We are thrilled to be able to finally share this! We have about 170 CDI candidates – people who have passed the CDI-Knowledge Exam and are anticipating the CASLI Generalist Performance Exam for Deaf Interpreters. The completion of this exam allows our CDI candidates a way to move forward to completing their CDI certification. CASLI will contact those CDI candidates directly with instructions on how to proceed… how to set up their appointment and take their exams. We are absolutely thrilled for our CDI candidates!
Other big news that we had to share with you is that – as you know – we’ve been working on the CASLI Generalist Knowledge Exam for both Deaf and hearing interpreters. The New Knowledge exam will be ready to be administered on our CASLI Exam System this January, 2021. We will be administering the new knowledge exam using Scantron Corporation, a company that we have worked with for many years, to administer our knowledge exam. While we are administering the new knowledge exam on our CASLI Exam System, we are contracting with ScanTron for their scheduling services and use of their test site network. Again, we anticipate that will be ready in January of 2021. That also means to that the CDI-Knowledge exam and the NIC-knowledge exams will both will be retired this December of 2020…that’s next month. Our candidates have been able to purchase their CDI-and NIC-knowledge exams in their RID Member Portal but after November 30th, 2020, those exams will no longer be available for purchase on the RID Member Portal. We will then get ready to administer the new CASLI Generalist Knowledge Exam on the CASLI Exam System beginning January 2021 and you will be able to purchase your new knowledge exam on the CASLI Exam System.
We know that people will have a lot of questions about the transition and about the new exams like what the processes will be, what the exams will look like, how to prepare, what to study, etc., We’ve also been working on overhauling our CASLI.org website. Our goal is to make the website easy to navigate and easy to understand for our candidate so they know exactly what steps they need to do as they navigate through the testing process, e.g. how to set up the appointments or how to prepare for the exam, and what our policies and procedures are. All of that on our newly revamped website also released today. If you have a question, please first look at our CASLI.org website especially within the Frequently Asked Questions and if you find your answer there or elsewhere on our website, perfect!!! If you still have a question that you don’t see anywhere on our website, please contact us. My email address Director@casli.org or if you have a question about your individual candidate account please contact our testing coordinator who deals with individual accounts and local test administrators. His email is Testing@casli.org.
There’s a lot that we’ve been working on and will keep working on! We are still dealing with the challenges of COVID-19, the global pandemic, which has really impacted the testing industry. It’s impacted test development timeline to completing these exams and will continue to impact our testing development and administration. We’re still meeting these challenges during this time as we transition to and administering these new exams for national certification… especially as communication access critical at this time. CASLI will keep meeting those challenges as best we can. We are aware that some people are excited about the new exams and want go ahead and schedule their appointments. We also urge you to take health and safety precautions. While it is at the individual discretion of the candidates and LTAs, we do not encourage any kind of travel during this spike in COVID cases. That said, COVID-19 will continue to also impact on things like the beta period of testing. The beta period means that once we start administrating the new exams these exams, we will collect 50 to 100 exam results and assemble a scoring committee to determine the scoring criteria and cut scores of the new exams. The beta period of testing is typically about 3 to 6 months but because of COVID and our limited ability to administer exams, that period may be longer. Right now we have no way of predicting at this time what the world will look like this winter and spring… we just are meeting each challenge as they come. We will keep you updated as best we can during these unprecedented times.
Again, if you have any questions or any concerns please feel free to contact us anytime. My email address is Director@CASLI.org. Or if you have a question related to your individual candidate account, or if you’re interested in becoming a Local Test Administrator, please contact our testing coordinator at Testing@casli.org. We thank you so much for your time and patience and, as always, please stay safe and stay healthy!
Slide 2 Image Description: CASLI logo on white background. Star Grieser, Director of Testing: Director@casli.org. VP/VRS: 703-988-4543. FaceTime: SGrieser@CASLI.org. CASLI.org.
Slide 3 Image Description: CASLI logo on white background. Sean Furman, Testing Coordinator. Testing@casli.org. VP/VRS: 571-257-4761. CASLI.org.
Slide 4 Image Description: CASLI logo on white background. CASLI.org.