Assessment programs rely on surveys for more than gathering feedback after an exam. Programs use them to check in with stakeholders, evaluate testing events, and gather the evidence that shapes better testing products going forward. Surveys are one of the most direct ways a program can listen at scale, and they work best when they live inside the same systems programs already use every day.

That’s the idea behind the newest addition to our Surveys tool in Program Workshop: reusable templates built for Job Task Analysis (JTA) surveys, the type of survey certification and licensure programs use to validate the knowledge, skills, and tasks tied to a professional role. The same functionality also supports blueprinting work for programs whose content isn’t necessarily anchored to a job role, such as K-12 assessments built around standards rather than professional practice.

Strong exams depend on evidence that’s hard to keep current.

Good exams are built on current evidence, but collecting that evidence takes real work. Programs update competency models, engage subject matter experts, and translate what they learn into blueprint changes. And because professional practice keeps evolving, especially as the pace of technological change increases, that work needs to be repeated more often than most teams have time for.

The skills being measured change. The survey methodology behind measuring them usually doesn’t. Picture a team gearing up for its next exam refresh. The competency framework reflects everything that’s changed in the field, but the survey doesn’t yet. Someone still has to rebuild the same structure by hand: the same demographic questions, the same rating scales, new competency names swapped in one at a time, then checked for consistency before anything goes out. Multiply that across every domain, task area, and task, and a project that should be about listening to experts turns into hours spent rebuilding a structure the team already knows works.

One template, built once, generates every survey that follows.

With JTA survey templates in Program Workshop, that rebuilding disappears. A team builds the methodology once: the introduction, the demographic questions, and the rating questions for one, two, or three levels of a competency hierarchy. When the next JTA or blueprinting project comes around, the team uploads an updated competency or content outline, and Program Workshop generates the full survey from the template automatically. Variables fill in with the correct competency names, so no one has to retype the same questions for every task and domain. Nothing is locked in — teams can still review, adjust, reorder, or add and remove questions before launching it like any other survey in Program Workshop.

Faster surveys lead to better, more current credentials.

Making this process faster isn’t the point on its own. It matters because of what it makes possible. When gathering this evidence is less painful, programs can do it more regularly, and a competency model that’s revisited often is one that keeps pace with how a role actually changes. That, in turn, is what keeps a credential meaningful: employers and candidates can trust that the exam still measures the skills that matter today, not the ones that mattered five years ago.

That’s the layer of partnership we care about most. We’re not just here to make a program’s workflow easier — we’re an extension of that program to the test takers and stakeholders who rely on it. Every improvement we make to how programs manage their content, including something as specific as a JTA survey template, is ultimately about giving candidates a more relevant, more trustworthy testing experience.

JTA surveys are one part of a single survey system, not a separate product.

JTA and blueprinting surveys aren’t a standalone tool bolted onto Program Workshop. They’re part of the same survey capability programs already use throughout the life of an assessment: gathering candidate feedback, running stakeholder research, evaluating testing events, and now, supporting job analysis and blueprinting.

That’s intentional. We don’t think programs should need a new tool every time they need answers to a new question. They should be able to gather feedback, collect evidence, and support their decisions from inside the systems they already use. JTA survey templates are one more step toward that, and they won’t be the last.

See how JTA survey templates fit into your program.

If your program already runs surveys in Program Workshop, JTA survey templates can extend that same workflow into job analysis, competency validation, and blueprinting, without adding another system to manage. We’d welcome the chance to show you how the feature works, and how it fits into keeping your assessments aligned with the skills and expectations that matter to the people who rely on your credential.

Jeffrey Spranza

Jeffrey Spranza is the Director of Product Management at ITS where he leads the team of technical product managers transforming the online assessment experience. Jeffrey joined ITS in 2005 with 15 years of experience in IT consulting and technical services. Since then, he’s played a critical role in the company’s growth and product improvement. Jeffrey holds a BS in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Virginia Tech and is certified as a Project Management Professional (PMP) and Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO). He’s also a proud Eagle Scout and enjoys outdoor activities with his wife and two sons.

Craig Boas

Craig Boas has been a Product Manager at ITS since 2016, where he is responsible for advancing the functionality and user experience in the Proctoring, Messaging, and Surveys components. He brings a unique blend of technical skills and legal expertise from his prior careers as a litigator and freelance web developer, holding a BS from Carnegie Mellon University, a JD from the University of Maryland School of Law, and a Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) certification. In his free time, Craig is an amateur coder who plays role-playing games and bolsters his real-world strength and constitution stats with regular weightlifting.