Company is Pioneer in Conversational and VR Credentialing Tests
ROCHESTER, New York—Vincent Lima has been appointed president of Authentic Testing Corp., a leading provider of professional credentialing and assessment services.
The appointment, effective April 2, 2024, was announced by the corporate board of directors.
“Vincent will build on our legacy of providing credentialing programs with innovative solutions and reliable support from their initial planning stages through their growth and maturity,” said Wallace Judd, Ph.D., the outgoing president. Dr. Judd will remain active in the company with the titles of Founder and Chief Scientist.
In addition to test-development, psychometric, and accreditation support for traditional multiple-choice exams, Authentic Testing supports performance testing and conversational testing, and is recognized for guiding the first virtual reality–based certification test to accreditation by the ANSI National Accreditation Board.
Mr. Lima has served for over seven years as the director of test development at Authentic Testing. He began his career in measurement as an Assessment Specialist at the Educational Testing Service, where he wrote, reviewed, and improved logical reasoning and analytical reasoning questions for the GRE® and critical reasoning questions for the GMAT™. Later, he was instrumental in developing the process for efficiently creating, reviewing, pilot testing, and scoring realistic simulations for The Uniform CPA Exam®. Over the last thirteen years, he has provided psychometric services and guided numerous credentialing programs from inception through the test-development process and accreditation by NCCA and ANSI under personnel certification or certificate standards.
Mr. Lima has served as a director of the Performance Testing Council and two terms as its president. Outside the testing industry, he has worked as a newspaper editor in an international setting and as a journal editor. Trained as a historian, he also holds a master’s degree in educational measurement.
“Wallace started Authentic Testing in 2007 to bring ‘authentic,’ performance-based testing to prominence in a field dominated by multiple-choice tests. Even where multiple-choice is the way to go, there was and is room for improvement, and that’s where the company has excelled,” Mr. Lima said. “Our clients rely on us for accurate, timely work, and we will continue to deliver. Meanwhile, I look forward to expanding our partnerships.”
Dr. Judd received his Ph.D. from Stanford University, where his dissertation advisor was Lee Cronbach. He is the holder of two U.S. patents, one on the original form of the liquid crystal projector and the other on a form of adaptive testing. He is co-author of 8 elementary math textbooks, an SRA kit on problem solving, three books on calculator games, and three measurement kits from Creative Playthings.
In his new capacity as chief scientist, Dr. Judd will expand the company’s offerings in conversational testing as well as virtual reality and publish his findings on test information metrics for exams that cannot use item response theory.
Authentic Testing is committed to building testing programs, large and small, that are credible and fair, with examinations that are valid for the purposes for which they are intended, reliable, and legally defensible.
Authentic Testing works with test sponsors—including professional associations and industry groups, businesses, and government agencies—to develop, administer, and maintain certification and certificate programs that meet stringent industry standards. Services include working with clients to set the scope of the credential, performing job-task analyses and validation surveys, facilitating item-writing and review activities, assembling examination forms, setting passing standards (cut scores), equating cut scores, and performing psychometric and test-security analyses of test results. In addition, the company prepares programs for accreditation under ISO/IEC 17024 and NCCA standards—working with test sponsors to develop policies and procedures, maintenance of certification requirements, and governance structures, and performing internal audits.