Malpractice and maladministration

A certificate from rTraining tells an employer, an inspector or an insurer that the person named on it passed the assessment themselves. This policy explains what we treat as malpractice by a learner, what we treat as maladministration by us, how we look into a suspicion, and what can happen as a result.

What the words mean

• Malpractice is anything done, on purpose or recklessly, that undermines the honesty of an assessment or a certificate.
• Maladministration is a mistake or a failure in how we run assessments or issue certificates, where nobody meant any harm but the result may still be wrong.

Malpractice by a learner

Examples of what we treat as malpractice:

• somebody other than the named person sitting the assessment, or sitting beside them supplying answers;
• letting another person use your account, or using one account for more than one person, including a shared login for a team;
• copying, recording, screenshotting or publishing assessment questions or answers, or passing them on;
• trying to get round the platform's rules, for example trying to see the answers before answering, to change an answer or a result, or to reach somebody else's record;
• asking Ask or the section tutor to answer assessment questions for you, or trying to make it ignore its rules;
• altering a certificate, or presenting one that is not yours.

The rules you agree to are in the terms and in the acceptable use policy.

Maladministration by us

Examples of what we treat as maladministration:

• a question in the bank that is wrong, ambiguous, or tests something the course does not teach;
• a certificate issued with the wrong name, course, version or dates, or issued when it should not have been;
• an attempt counted, or a lockout applied, wrongly;
• a course version published without the checks that should have come first;
• a reasonable adjustment that was agreed and not applied.

What the platform does to prevent it

These are how the platform works, not steps somebody has to remember:

• The answers never reach your browser before you answer, and a learner cannot write to their own attempt or result. Everything goes through the server, which checks the attempt is yours.
• Each paper is marked once, when it is submitted, and no application account can change a score or a result afterwards.
• You have one paper open at a time for a course, and each attempt is a new draw with the questions and their options shuffled.
• Ask and the section tutor are switched off while you have an assessment open, and a message that looks like one of our assessment questions is refused without being answered.
• Misuse of Ask and the tutor is recorded. A message asking for other people's data, for the tutor's instructions or keys, or to get round its rules is refused and logged. Three in 24 hours pause the tutor for your account for 24 hours, and our staff are told.
• Attempts are not deleted to cover anything up. An attempt that has to be set aside is voided with a reason, and a voided attempt, a lifted lockout and a reset are all written to an audit log that nobody can edit or delete from.
• Where an attempt was sat from is recorded. The network address an attempt was started from and handed in from, the country, region and city our host estimates from it, and the approximate coordinates of that network, rounded to about a kilometre, are kept with the attempt, as is how long each section was on screen before it and how long each question was on screen before it was answered. Only you and our staff can see them, never an employer, and every time our staff open them it is recorded in the audit log.

What the platform does not do: it does not watch you through a camera, record your screen, block copy and paste, track your precise location, or check your identity beyond your sign-in. We rely on you, on your employer where it enrolled you, and on the record above.

Reporting a concern

If you think somebody has cheated, that a certificate is not genuine, or that we have got something wrong, email training@rtriibe.com with "malpractice" in the subject line. You can tell us who you are or not; an anonymous report is harder to look into, but we will still look. If your employer discovers that somebody cheated, the organisation terms ask it to tell us.

How we investigate

• Who. A concern is looked into by a person at rTriibe with no connection to you or to the course concerned. See the conflicts of interest policy.
• What we look at. The attempt records: the paper that was drawn, the answers chosen and when, the times the attempt was started and submitted, the network address it was started and handed in from, with the country, region and city our host estimated from each and the network's approximate coordinates, rounded to about a kilometre, and how long each section of the course was on screen before it. None of these proves who sat an assessment: a school's or a phone's network, or a VPN, can place somebody far from where they were, and a page on screen is not a page read. They are a reason to ask a question, and we ask it before deciding anything. The audit log of anything our staff did to the account. Anything the person reporting it sends us.
• Telling you. If a concern is about you, we tell you what it is, show you what we are relying on, and give you the chance to answer before we decide. We tell you in writing what is alleged, and you have 10 working days to respond.
• While we look. We may suspend your access to the platform while we look into it. We do not withhold your training record while a dispute is unresolved unless the record itself is what is in dispute.
• How long. We decide within 30 working days. If it will take longer, we tell you before then, say why, and give you a new date.

What can happen

Where we find malpractice, depending on how serious it is:

• The attempt is voided. It stays on the record, marked as voided with the reason.
• The certificate is withdrawn. We record the reason and email it to you. Anyone who checks the certificate number is told only that it has been withdrawn; the reason is not shown publicly. If we later find we were wrong, the certificate is reinstated.
• Your account is suspended or closed, as the terms allow.
• We tell others who need to know. Where a course carries an accreditation, we report confirmed malpractice to the accrediting body if its rules require it. Where an organisation sponsored the training, it sees that the certificate has been withdrawn, because it sees the certificate.

Where we find maladministration, we put it right: we correct or reissue the certificate, void an attempt so it does not count, lift a lockout, correct or withdraw a faulty question, and find everybody else affected by the same fault and put theirs right too.

If you disagree

You can appeal a finding of malpractice, and what we did about it, under the appeals policy.

What we record

We keep a record of every concern, what we found and what we did, for 6 years from the date the matter is closed. An accrediting body can ask to see it for a course that carries its accreditation.