ATTENTION: CISRO Update – Access to Online LLQP Exams

ATTENTION: CISRO Update – Access to Online LLQP Exams

Dear LLQP Candidates,

We do hope that you are all in good health amidst the Covid-19 pandemic.

We would like to provide you with an update received from CISRO as it relates to access to the Online LLQP Exam Sittings and their plan for the rest of the year.

Background

With the announcement of the Covid-19 pandemic, along with the state of emergency declaration in Canada, in-person LLQP exams were shut down in mid-March.  In early April, a number of jurisdictions began exploring options for delivering the exam online.   In late April, those participating jurisdictions asked Durham college (the exam administrator in Ontario and New Brunswick) to proceed with work on launching online proctored exams.  Other jurisdictions re-launched the in-person exam option, beginning with Alberta in May.

Durham launched the online proctoring through ProctorU in August.  Based on that timing, the period without access to exams in most jurisdictions reached approximately 5 months.

In the early weeks of the online launch we focused on two things:

  • Providing preferred access to the early sittings for students who had exams scheduled and cancelled in March/April; and
  • Increasing capacity on a measured basis to ensure that the process worked smoothly.

Current State

CISRO have now built capacity to 300 module sittings per day, 6 days a week.  This translates into approximately 7,500 module sittings per month.  The 7,500 sittings for October are fully booked.  The sittings for November is about to be released (see “Next Steps”).

As they worked through the process of ramping up capacity and monitoring progress, they have encountered one complicating factor.  The pre-Covid exam process in Ontario and New Brunswick allowed students to register for exam sitting dates prior to achieving their certification.  Students had until 7 days prior to the exam sitting to complete the certification process.  This means that students who have completed their certification since March are seeing reduced exam availability as sittings are booked by students who are not yet certified.  Continuing that arrangement would mean that the length of time required to work through the backlog would be extended significantly.  Based on that, CISRO have asked Durham to limit future online exam bookings to students who have completed certification.

Next Steps

Durham has indicated that the system changes required for the “certified-only” approach will be completed early next week.  Durham will take an extract from CIPR twice per day, and as students sign on to register, there will be a check to ensure that they have completed certification.

On Tuesday October 6th, Durham will release approximately 25% of November sittings to test the new process.  Once they confirm that it works smoothly, they will release the balance of the November sittings.  This large block should help with access to sittings.  Durham will monitor the process of filling November sittings before releasing the block of December sittings.

As with many Covid-interrupted workflows, this has been a challenging issue to work through and CISRO appreciate your patience as they tried to move the ball forward.  Hopefully the release of the large blocks of sittings for November and December will substantially improve student access to exam sittings.

Please continue to check the website at https://www.cisro-ocra.com/ for further updates.

We wish you the best as you continue to prepare for your LLQP exams.

– Advocis Student Services