5 Questions to Ask Before Renewing Your Exam Delivery Contract

CREDENTIAL STRATEGY

Questions Every Exam Director Should Ask Their Testing Vendor

Contract renewal feels routine. The paperwork arrives, the vendor relationship is established, and the path of least resistance is to sign. But the testing landscape has changed substantially since most credentialing programs last evaluated their delivery partner. AI assisted cheating is a growing threat. Candidate expectations have shifted. Proctoring models that looked solid three years ago may not hold up today.

Before you sign, ask these five questions.

1. What does your uptime guarantee actually mean under peak load?

Every vendor will show you a 99.9% uptime figure. The question is what that number covers. Annual averages obscure the moments that matter most: the first hour of a major examination window, when thousands of candidates log in simultaneously. A program that passes its annual average but drops under load during a high-stakes sitting has failed the only test that counts.

Ask your vendor for documented performance data during peak sittings, not aggregate statistics. Platforms built for scalable delivery should be able to point to specific events where they maintained stability at 100,000 or more concurrent candidates. If that reference point does not exist, the platform has not been tested at the level your program may require.

2. Can you show me your exam integrity data, not just your security designs?

Every vendor has security controls. Few will share what actually happened under it. The relevant questions are specific: how many suspected cheating incidents were flagged in the last 12 months, how were they investigated, and what was the outcome for the candidate and the program?

There is a meaningful difference between a vendor who claims to deter misconduct and one who can demonstrate how misconducts are detected, investigated, and resolved. Identity fraud, screen sharing to remote assistants, and collusion between candidates are not hypothetical risks. Ask your vendor how many cases of each they handled last year. If the answer is zero, ask how they know.

3. How has your approach to AI assisted cheating changed since 2023?

This is the question most programs have not yet asked, and the one that most distinguishes vendors right now. Screen sharing to a remote assistant, AI generated written responses, and synthetic identity documents are active threats. Detection approaches that worked in 2021 do not address them adequately.

Ask your vendor specifically what has changed in their detection and response protocols, not what they intend to change. If the answer describes capabilities that were already in place before 2023, the platform has not kept pace with the threat.

4. How many systems does a candidate touch between registration and results?

Count them: the registration portal, the scheduling tool, the identity verification step, the proctoring interface, the exam platform, the results notification. On some programs, each of these is a different system, managed by a different team, with a different login. Every handoff between systems is a point where candidates get lost, support tickets get generated, and staff have to intervene.

Ask your vendor to walk you through the full candidate journey and the full staff workflow on exam day. The number of systems involved is a direct measure of operational complexity and support burden. A unified platform does not just reduce friction for candidates. It reduces the training load on your team and the number of failure points your program depends on.

5. What would it take to move our program to a different provider?

This question is not about leaving. It is about understanding your options. Programs that have never asked it often discover at renewal that their historical data, item banks, and candidate records are locked into formats that are difficult or expensive to export.

Before renewing, understand what a transition would actually involve. How long would migration take? Which data can be exported? What integrations would need to be rebuilt? Even if you decide to stay, knowing the true cost of switching gives you a stronger position when making long-term decisions.

A quick reference for vendor conversations

The Operational Reality

Contract renewal is one of the best opportunities to ask difficult questions, not because something has gone wrong, but because it hasn't. The strongest testing programs use renewal not simply to extend a contract, but to re-evaluate whether their delivery partner is still the right fit for today's operational, security, and candidate expectations.

At ATS, we believe scalable exam delivery should combine proven technology with operational expertise. Backed by ATA Group's 25 years of assessment experience and more than 180 million exams delivered globally, we help organizations build secure, scalable digital testing programs with confidence.

Reviewing your testing strategy? We'd be happy to continue the conversation: info@atstests.com