Many learners will have come across or sat their exams through the City and Guilds GOLA exam interface. This online interface has resulted in many thousands of learners gaining recognised qualifications quickly and easily through a relatively easy to use interface.

City and Guilds have recently announced the rollout of their new platform to replace the existing system and they have called it e-volve.

The e-volve platform appears to offer all the benefits of the previous system with many new features and additional flexibility from an administrators point of view with regards to setting a variety of different format questions and answers.

City and Guilds are rolling out the e-volve system from Spring 2011 and hope to have it fully implemented in all their centres by the end of the year.

Many exam centres will still be using the original system until they migrate to the e-volve platform some time during 2011.

Initial observations seem to suggest that there are many similarities, from the point of view of the person sitting an exam, between the old system and the new e-volve system. The navigation of the e-volve system looks easier, with each question number located in a horizontal list on the left of the interface screen. This appears to make it easier to jump between questions and go back to questions that you may not have answered or have ‘flagged’ to return to.

The ‘flag’ function remains but it now appears any questions flagged will have a small flag symbol alongside the question number on the previously mentioned horizontal question list. This makes it much easier to return to a flagged question in the e-volve system as the previous system required the opening up of a new window to view any missed and flagged questions.

The e-volve platform has the addition of a progress bar which will give a visual indication of the progress being made and, used in conjunction with the timer, can provide a quick estimation of the learner’s progress through the exam.

For learners who are presently studying for a qualification you may be able to contact your examination centre to query whether your exam will be taken on the GOLA system or whether the new e-volve platform is being used.

Learners who wish to find out more about the e-volve platform can visit the City and Guilds dedicated e-volve website.