There's no room for error when you're assessing student learning. Our Office of Quality supports and extends the quality assurance activities conducted by our resource departments and furthers our commitment to on-time delivery of 100 percent accurate and reliable work.
Questar's Office of Quality was instituted to implement a state-of-the-art quality management system and to lead our corporate quality improvement efforts.
- Our rigorous quality planning and risk management process begins by documenting concrete methods for achieving the highest quality, with metrics for measuring and monitoring quality throughout your program's lifecycle
- We ensure that the methods, procedures, and principles specified in the project plan are appropriate, explicit, correct, and fully accomplished
- Questar is committed to continuous improvement – the Office of Quality evaluates internal resource departments to assess the efficiency and accuracy of all deliverables and hand-offs, and makes changes where appropriate so that every testing program runs smoothly and without issues
- Building quality into all processes results in fewer risks, more efficiencies, and little to no rework – ultimately leading to lower costs and helping you drive greater accountability
In addition to our corporate oversight of quality assurance and a focus on error prevention, we routinely employ quality control procedures and checks to ensure that:
- Design and printing of all assessment materials, including test booklets and manuals, is error free and meets or exceeds industry standards for quality
- Machine-scannable documents are printed to the precise specifications demanded for optimal processing via image scanning
- All packaging and distribution have been carried out according to the proper requirements and standards, with appropriate shipment tracking
- All secure materials and completed student response documents are accounted for when each package is received
- All data are captured in the most reliable, accurate, and complete fashion
- Numbered test materials and pre-identified student documents are properly matched to one another
- All phases of performance assessment undergo rigorous quality checks and monitoring – from organizing constructed responses for handscoring to rubric development and reader quality control systems design to continual monitoring of reader scores
- All phases of scoring and reporting have been exhaustively checked, reviewed, and analyzed before the final production of results
Experienced Leadership
Linda Straley, Senior Vice President, leads Questar's Office of Quality. She oversees the development of quality assurance procedures and checklists to the full documentation of quality assurance analyses and results. Working with Questar's staff and clients to understand and monitor program requirements, Ms. Straley's sole responsibility is to improve Questar's processes and deliverables – and, ultimately, ensure a truly exceptional client experience.