Fact Check: The NCARB/Lineup Connection
To provide some clarity into the Lineup/NCARB connection, NCARB would like to share the following information:
True: It is true that Lineup, LLC, is a for-profit subsidiary of NCARB, created in 2019 for the purpose of marketing and distributing proprietary software that had been developed by NCARB staff in the process of our regular business activities. Specifically, the lineup tool was developed to help NCARB coordinate and organize its many architect and public member volunteers into equitable and effective committees and task forces. NCARB has not been shy about sharing this information, and you can read more in our FY19 Annual Report or on the Lineup website.
True: It is true that Lineup’s leadership includes two NCARB staff members (Michael Armstrong and Guillermo Ortiz de Zárate) and an NCARB Board of Directors member (Kenneth Van Tine). This is appropriate and reflects common practice, given Lineup’s existence as a subsidiary of NCARB.
False: It is not true that Lineup or Prolydian are in any way involved in the delivery of the ARE or the creation of any tools for exam delivery, including the new digital whiteboard. Lineup offers team management software, which is not part of the ARE. For transparency’s sake, It is true that NCARB uses Lineup software to manage the application, selection, and diversity of hundreds of architect volunteers who help develop the ARE—that is where the connection between Lineup and the ARE ends.
False: It is not true that any income from Lineup goes directly to NCARB’s and/or Lineup’s leadership. NCARB will use income from Lineup to offset the costs of NCARB’s programs and services, with the long-term goal of using Lineup revenue to reduce NCARB fees. The NCARB staff and board representative on the Lineup board receive no compensation for their Lineup board service.
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The highlighting and strikeout tools are not working on the demo exam.
The highlight and strike-out tools do 'technically' work but it is a little janky.
Step 1: Select text to highlight (or strike-out).
Step 2: click on highlight (or strike-out).
To remove a strike-out, you just select the text (technically we call it highlighting but for sake of clarity, lets just say 'select' to delineate from the "Highlight" tool)........... then you click on strike-out.
When it comes actually de-"Highlighting" the text, things do in fact get a little wonky because when you want to highlight another group of text, you'll have to select the color. When you de-"highlight" the text, it just changes the color of the "highlight" from yellow to white. Which is actually wonky in my opinion but the highlight tool should be yellow or one of the other colors. It works but works in a janky fashion.
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Jared,
The reason many candidates did not test since March is because NCARB did not put the test on the essential list. It is NCARB's fault that candidates could not test.
And NO candidates are happy about the changes, how you have rolled them out, and how you continue to disregard what the candidates say. When will NCARB actually listen to its candidates? Never it seems and you can't promise us otherwise.
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NCARB is constantly doing things to make their life easier rather than actually promoting candidates to want to study and be proud of what they have learned. These tests are so poorly written, I never come out happy. I'm either angry that I failed and the content didn't match the resources NCARB sited, and the questions are so poorly written I didn't even understand what they were asking, or technical glitches made me run out of time. Or I passed and I am sad at how horribly written the exams are, and the lack of fairness of the specific material the exam chose to cover, and how much of my life I have had to give to satisfying what NCARB deems important.
Does the whiteboard worked with a touch screen?
I think the white board discriminates against age. It is hard to stare at a screen for 4 hours and 15 minutes, that to eliminate the small act of looking away from the screen, tilting your neck and using your hand to work through a problem is biased to younger people with more resilient eyes. It is also biased towards right hand people.
NCARB needs to keep charging people to pay their overpaid staff at the top level, many who have never taken these exams, and this is why they are introducing home testing.
In other countries there is a passion around inspiring architects to care about what they need to know to be registered. I came out of my Part III in the UK, proud of what I learned and excited to apply it. Here under NCARB, I'm angry these type of tyrannical institutions still exist, and they have made so much money for an exam which I may remember 15% or less of what I learned for later use in practice. NCARB has ZERO credibility in this testing process, and I would never encourage a student to pursue NCARB accreditation.
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