Arnhem, 28 October 2008

CEO Cito elected chair of international branch organisation

At their conference in Santa Monica (USA), the Board of Directors of the Association of Test Publishers (ATP) unanimously elected Marten Roorda (1961) of the Netherlands to be their Chair Elect as of 1 January 2009. This means that Roorda, Chief Executive Officer of Cito, will act as Chair of the ATP for the duration of 2010. It is the first time that a non-American has been appointed as chairman of the most important branch association of testing and assessment companies in the world.

The Association of Test Publishers was founded in 1992 as a branch organisation for test publishers, at first mainly in the United States, but later for companies all over the world. Nowadays, all the main providers of tests and assessments are affiliated to the ATP. Besides Cito, these companies include ETS, Prometric, Pearson VUE, CTB/McGraw Hill and The College Board in the USA; SHL, Cambridge Assessment and Question Mark Perception in Europe; ATA in China; and Microsoft, Cisco and HP as certification companies. For the last ten years, an annual conference has been held in the USA and it is attended these days by approximately 750 people. There is also a European conference planned for 2009.

The aim of the ATP is to protect the interests of the test publishers, provide information, improve the image of testing and to exchange knowledge. It also strives to monitor the quality of the tests and ensure they are used to their best advantage. There are currently five divisions within the ATP which carry out submarket oriented activities: Education, Industrial/Organisational, Certification/Licensure, Clinical, and the European ATP. The European division is the first step towards the internationalisation of the ATP. Plans are also underway to set up an Asian division at some stage and to bring the divisions from all continents together under a single umbrella organisation.

Cito and ATP
Marten Roorda has been the Chief Executive Officer of Cito since 1 July 2002. He has put great effort into helping Cito gain greater international recognition and in promoting its activities abroad. Cito now has branches and representatives in Germany, Turkey, the USA, Japan and Korea. Cito is the joint controller of large international research projects such as PISA (OECD) and SurveyLang (EU). Cito has international clients such as the QCA (English qualifications and curriculum authority) and the GMAC® (organises entrance examinations for business schools).

Marten Roorda has been active in the ATP for some time now. He was a keynote speaker at the 2004 Annual Conference in Palm Springs. He was elected to the Board of Directors of the branch organisation in 2005 and was re-elected in 2007. Roorda founded the European Division of the ATP in 2006.

According to regulations, the chairman of the ATP is always initially the Chair Elect for a year, succeeds to Chair for a year and then becomes Past Chair for a year.