Technical Requirements

Technical Requirements for Delivering VCAA Assessment Online Programs

VCAA Assessment Online School Server Hardware

For Government Schools, the VCAA Assessment Online School Server will be hosted on the new CASES/CASES21 Server which has been pre-configured and deployed to also support On Demand Testing.

For Non Government Schools, the VCAA Assessment Online School Server can be hosted on dedicated servers with the following minimum hardware configuration:

• 2000MHz processing capacity
• 512MB DDR-SDRAM
• 20GB dual SCSI hard drives with hardware mirroring
• 10/100 Mbps network capacity.

The school server needs to be able to access the VCAA Assessment Online Central Server site through the Internet.

VCAA Assessment Online Server Software

• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition
• Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0
• COM+ Data Access

VCAA Assessment Online Languages

• Visual Basic - Backend Processing
• XML - Data Transfer
• XSL - Presentation Layer

VCAA Assessment Online User Interface

• Microsoft Windows 98, 2000, XP and 2003. (Not supported by Apple MAC, or other non-Microsoft MS Windows Operating Systems)
• Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) 5.5 and above
• ActiveX Controls and Plug-ins
• Macromedia Flash Plug-in

The assessments can be accessed from classrooms and computer labs providing they have network access to the VCAA Assessment Online school server at the school, which may be located on the CASES/CASES21 server or an equivalent server.

How Does VCAA Assessment Online Manage Security?

VCAA Assessment Online security is role-based, allowing access to assessment material and results only to those with appropriate access authority. Students cannot access the assessment items, other than by undertaking the assessment.

As an added security measure, the marking mechanisms are isolated from assessments and are protected.