PAR is proud of our ongoing relationship with United Way. In September, we took part in our annual fundraising campaign. For more than 20 years, 100% of staff members have contributed during our annual United Way drive. This year was no different. We exceeded our fundraising goal, resulting in employee contributions of $88,063.84 being donated to United Way to help continue its mission of helping others in our community. With match and challenge donations, that brings our 2016 United Way campaign total to $133,069.76! Amazing!

This year, our United Way week theme was PAR Olympics. Staffers were broken into five teams that took part in a host of competitions, ranging from artistic gymnastics to a javelin toss to indoor rowing. Some furry athletes from the Humane Society of Tampa Bay even stopped by.

Want to learn more about how you can help United Way in your community? Visit www.unitedway.org.

This week, Richard Brummer, Senior Manager of Quality Assurance will be retiring after 12.5 years with PAR. This is the third part in a series where PAR staff share their memories and well wishes on Richard’s retirement.

Did you miss Part 1 or Part 2? Catch up now.

We will miss you, Richard!

The first time I ever met Richard was when I was doing post-hire interviews my first week at PAR. I remember walking into his office and seeing a display case with an electronic tether. I was a little intimidated. I came to find out that he was the project manager of the team that created the electronic tether. I think this may have intimidated me a little bit more, but as I got to know Richard both inside and outside of work, his wisdom, integrity, sense of humor, and caring made him stand out as both an employee and a human being. He quickly became one of my favorite people and I am sad to say that life at PAR will truly not be the same without him!

-Rebecca Gerhardstein, Senior Project Director

 

Richard has a quiet but impactful way of helping others. Beside the many Customers (internal and external) he has assisted over the years, Richard and his wife Sandi have been faithful supporters of Meals On Wheels of Tampa. As a company, PAR is an Adopt-A-Route Partner of Meals On Wheels (MOW), with staff taking turns delivering meals to the homebound in our community. Richard has been a vital part of this group of volunteers. For the first few years, he organized and managed the PAR group of volunteers, while also delivering an additional weekly MOW route with his wife Sandi. By speaking with the recipients and others, I learned he and Sandi did many other things behind the scenes to help the recipients. Such acts of kindness included visiting numerous additional times with 90+ year old recipient Dorothy, who lived alone, and continuing to visit her frequently when she moved to an assisted living facility; constructing a wooden ramp so one of the wheelchair-bound recipients could more easily access his home; and helping one of the recipients, who was a self-acknowledged hoarder, clean out her apartment. The list goes on. We will miss Richard and the many ways he has helped all of us at PAR, as well as those in our community.

-Cathy Smith, Vice President of Community Relations

 

Richard was an extremely valuable member of the PAR Team. Not just for his many contributions to our success, but also his cheery disposition and charitable heart. I will miss the delightful chats, stories, and delicious goodies from Sandi. Thank you for all that you have done for PAR!

-Vicki McFadden, Permissions Specialist

 

In the 9 years I have known Richard, he has always been such a pleasure to work with—not only great at his job but also funny and warm. My favorite memory with him is when he presented me with a framed screenshot of a certain PARiConnect screen, the wording on which he and I had debated heavily. I won the debate, and he was sweet enough to frame the results for me. Of course, the framed screenshot is still hanging on my office wall. Richard is just that type of person—caring, kind, a real friend. I will truly miss working with him.

-Erika Thompson, Manager of Production

 

Richard Brummer is one of the nicest people I have ever met and worked with. He’s so kind and thoughtful while always keeping you on your toes with his joshing. I’ll always remember when he surprised me with my “No Love Like Dog Love” mug during Christmas. I felt so special that day. His visits to my desk are going to be so missed. I hope he knows how much he is loved!

-Lauren Howland, Desktop Publisher

 

Good luck, Richard! We will miss you!

 

This week, Richard Brummer, Senior Manager of Quality Assurance will be retiring after 12.5 years with PAR. This is the second part in a series where PAR staff share their memories and well wishes on Richard’s retirement.

Did you miss Part 1? Click here.

For months, every time I walked into Richard’s office, my eyes were drawn to something strange, and I couldn’t fathom why he had it. Perched beside his monitor is a section of a tree trunk about a foot and a half in length and about six inches in diameter. Glued to this piece of wood is an assortment of brightly-colored plastic bugs. For a long time, I just thought that he really liked the outdoors and it was his alternative to a painting of a tree. I asked about it after a while, and Richard explained that one of his many responsibilities is to find errors and inconsistencies in our digital products during development. Any issue he and the team finds is logged in a central place that is used to communicate with the programmers. Issues are called ‘bugs’ in the programming world. Those bugs are recorded in a log. A bug log. This whole time, he’s had a bug log in his office.

-Amy Kovacs, Research Assistant

 

Richard Brummer brought a bottle of champagne to every meeting during the development of PARiConnect. Here, he opens that bottle in the PAR parking lot on January 2, 2013, the day of the PARiConnect launch.

For the past 12 years, Richard has been passionately committed to ensuring that all PAR products contain no errors or quality problems when they are published. And he has done an exceptional job leading this effort and achieving his objective more than 99% of the time. He has developed innovative processes and procedures to evaluate and test product quality, and has trained others to be able to meet the same standards.

Richard also led the effort to design and develop PARiConnect and ensure that it was completed and launched in early 2013. He has continued to be a very strong champion for the ongoing development and evolution of the PARiConnect platform and experience, and has spent endless hours teaching our Customers and others about it. PARiConnect would not be the same without all of the major contributions he has made to it.

-R. Bob Smith, III, PhD, Chairman and CEO

 

Richard has made so many valuable contributions to PAR over the years, particularly his tireless work to help build PARiConnect into a powerful and user-friendly platform. He also worked on a daily basis to ensure that every product published by PAR was error free. But what I’ll remember most is his commitment to doing things the right way. He has always been consistent and steadfast in his beliefs. He fought on behalf of our customers and did a great job of keeping our Customer Support department informed. For that and many other reasons, we’ll miss him dearly. Thanks for everything, Richard!

-Daniel McFadden, Manager of Customer Support

 

Richard has always inspired me to think differently about things. His Innovation Academy was an amazing course that made us really question protocol and view things in a different light. Not only did it help us, but it helped our Customers and made PAR an even better company. I’ll miss Richard’s honesty and wit as well as his almost daily visits to our department (often with treats from his wife). I hope that he truly enjoys his retirement as it is well deserved. He will be missed greatly.

-Teri Lyon, Senior Technical Support Specialist

 

Richard and the accounting staff during a company celebration.

I will miss Richard’s impromptu visits. He is one of the few employees who prefers face to face meetings and walks through the south building regularly. He is very personable and I enjoy his visits and his good nature and sense of humor. I’ll also miss Sandi’s baking. Oh, and he has been extremely helpful with our fixed asset inventories!

-Karen Clifford, Senior Accountant

Did you miss Part 1? Click here. Come back tomorrow for Part 3.

“Real artists ship” is a quote attributed to Steve Jobs of Apple, but around the PAR office, it is a phrase closely associated with Richard Brummer, Senior Manager of Quality Assurance. This week, Richard will be retiring after 12.5 years with the company.

When Richard started at PAR in 2004, he thought he would be working on developing psychological assessment products in print. But in the years since, that has only been a small part of his responsibilities. Most notably, he has been a dedicated champion of the PARiConnect platform since the early days of development. Every PAR Customer has felt Richard’s influence—his tireless dedication to making sure each product is error-free, easily understandable, and intuitively designed is clear on everything he touches. Richard has taught all of us so much about creativity, innovation, and – just like his motto – making sure the focus is always on the Customer receiving a product that makes their job easier.

Here are a few memories we would like to share:

 
I believe that it was, in large part, Richard’s motivation to speak directly to Customers, gather information on their needs, and transform that into PARiConnect functions that lead to the excellent reputation the system has today.

Also, the treats that his wife makes for us are also spectacular.

-Julie Alexander, PhD, Senior Clinical Assessment Consultant

 

Richard Brummer at the PARiConnect launch on January 2, 2013.

I remember Richard taking over as project manager on the development of PARiConnect. With a gleam in his eye, he courageously led a cross-functional team of employees and outside developers in a short time frame to develop a testing and reporting platform with the focus on the user experience. His leadership taught the entire team that anything is possible with perseverance and focus. I have learned so much from Richard throughout my time and PAR and will miss him tremendously!

-Donna Drackett, Vice President/Chief Financial Office

 

I thought the thorough and organized way in which Richard organized and elicited help for testing of the PARiConnect upgrade that was completed in 2015 was masterful! He provided clear and concise explanations of what needed to be tested, and how to accomplish it. It made it easy for many of us to assist.

-Kay Cunningham, President and Chief Operating Officer

 

One of my favorite Richardisms: That’s been around since Moses was a Cub Scout!

-Sue Trujillo, Manager of Data Collection

 

Richard was a great asset to me when I was developing forms for the first time. I truly appreciate his eye when it comes to usability and what will make sense to our Customers. He continues to be my go-to person for review when I am mocking up a form.

-Jenny Greene, Senior Research Assistant

 

Come back tomorrow for Part 2 of this three-part series.

The third in the EDDT series, the EDDT-SR allows clinicians to assess emotional disturbance from the perspective of a child or adolescent. A standardized, norm-referenced assessment, the EDDT-SR is completed by individuals ages 9-18 years and is intended to be used in conjunction with the EDDT parent or teacher versions to develop a well-rounded picture of an individual’s functioning.

The EDDT-SR:

• Uses criteria presented in the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA) with scales that map directly on to this criteria.


• Provides additional analysis and scores developed for all three EDDT versions including base rates for discrepancies between raters and reliable change scores.


• Includes scales that measure Inability to Build or Maintain Relationships, Inappropriate Behaviors or Feelings, Pervasive Mood/Depression, and Physical Symptoms or Fears, and clusters that measure Level of Severity, Motivation, and Resilience.

Spanish forms are available!

To order the EDDT-SR or learn more, click here!

This article refers to products that are no longer available or supported.

Did you know the Concussion Legacy Foundation has named today Team Up Day? The main goal is to make sure athletes know they have a responsibility to report to a team leader if they notice concussion symptoms in a teammate. To learn how you can get involved in this important cause, click here.

PAR is committed to concussion safety. In fact, we offer two apps that can help athletes, parents, coaches, trainers, and more. The Concussion Recognition & Response™ (CRR) app helps coaches and parents recognize whether an individual is exhibiting and/or reporting the signs of a concussion. In fewer than 5 minutes, a parent or coach can complete a checklist of signs and symptoms to help determine whether to seek medical attention. The app allows users to record pertinent information regarding the child with a suspected concussion, allowing them to easily share that information with health-care providers. Post-injury, it guides parents through follow-up treatment.

The Concussion Assessment & Response™: Sport Version (CARE) app is a tool for athletic trainers, team physicians, and other qualified health care professionals to assess the likelihood of a concussion and respond quickly and appropriately.

The CRR app is available free of charge. The CARE app costs just $4.99. Both apps are available for download through the Apple® App Store^SM and Google Play for use on your iPhone®, iPad®, iPod® Touch, Android™ device, or tablet!

You may know the Vocabulary Assessment Scales™ (VAS™) is a picture vocabulary test that uses high-quality digital photographs to measure vocabulary and language throughout the life span. Here are five things you may not know.

1. Assess with greater iconicity and ecological validity. Full-color photographs provide the highest degree of realism possible. Beyond simply improving aesthetics, using photographs instead of drawings may allow for a more accurate assessment of an individual’s vocabulary.


2. Choose between paper or digital stimuli. The VAS stimulus books are available digitally, for use on your tablet, or on paper, for traditional administration.


3. Free training is available. PAR offers a free training course to assist users in becoming acquainted with the measure. This interactive online presentation is available on demand through the PAR Training Portal.


4. Evaluate hard-to-test individuals. Ideal for use with nonreaders, beginning communicators, or people who have reading or written language impairments, the VAS requires no reading or writing. The response format places a low demand on motor skills.


5. Obtain an enhanced skill assessment. Composite and discrepancy scores enhance your ability to interpret expressive and receptive scores. When both the VAS-E and VAS-R are administered, examiners can calculate a Vocabulary Composite Score as well as an Expressive-Receptive Discrepancy Score.

 

To learn more about the VAS, visit the product page.

During the next month, PAR will be offering free Webinars on many of our newest products. Whether you have already begun using these assessments and are seeking a deeper understanding of the science behind the test or you are considering adding the assessment to your professional library, these Webinars will offer insight into the measure, explain administration and scoring details, and assist in interpretation. Each Webinar will give you the opportunity to ask questions and interact with knowledgeable PAR staff.

If you’ve been wondering about PAR’s newest assessments, take this opportunity to learn more!

Space is limited, so register today!

Introduction to the Academic Achievement Battery (AAB)–Screening Form
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
2:30 to 3 P.M. ET
Register here
Assess four areas of achievement throughout the life span

Introduction to the Academic Achievement Battery (AAB) –Comprehensive Version
Thursday, September 29, 2016
1 to 2 P.M. ET
Register here
Assess seven areas of achievement throughout the life span

Introduction to the Reynolds Intellectual Assessment Scales, 2nd Edition (RIAS-2)
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
1 to 2 P.M. ET
Register here
Assess intelligence and its major components

Introduction to the Child and Adolescent Memory Profile (ChAMP)
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
1 to 2 P.M. ET
Register here
Assess visual and verbal memory in children, adolescents, and young adults

Overview of the Feifer Assessment of Reading
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
1 to 2 P.M. ET
Register here
Examine the underlying cognitive and linguistic processes that support proficient reading skills

Introduction to DBR Connect
Thursday, September 15, 2016
12 to 1 P.M. ET
Register here
Rate student behavior in minutes

Register today! Space is limited!

PAR prides itself on creating assessment products that are both high in quality and in value. The process of taking an idea and molding it into a useful product involves the hard work and dedication of many people, and although no single effort or particular phase of development is more important than another, some roles are naturally more visible than others. One department Customers may not be familiar with, but certainly benefit from, is the unwavering diligence of Quality Assurance.

Richard Brummer, MBA, M Ed IT, CSTE, Senior Manager of Quality Assurance (QA), helps shed some light on the role the QA department plays in the development of PAR products.

 

What is quality assurance?

Quality assurance is a continuous, unrelenting focus on the processes of product development.

Why is quality assurance important?

QA works closely with each print and software product from its initial design all the way through postproduction support, giving feedback about usability and accuracy.

“You cannot enhance a product’s quality during the final testing phases because that it too far down the road,” Brummer explains. “Quality begins at the very beginning.”

QA’s close involvement from the initial design ensures that any inaccuracies are corrected quickly, which saves time and money, and eliminates the risk of persisting errors.

How does the PAR QA process improve our assessment products?

Most companies enhance a product’s quality by investing all focus into testing the product in order to find and correct defects. While this approach is effective, it is also lacking because it does not necessarily make the product better; it simply provides a product without inaccuracies.

At PAR, a product that simply has no inaccuracies is not good enough.

“We take a more progressive and proactive approach during the entire product development lifecycle that focuses on maximizing the Customer experience with a product that is also free from defects,” Brummer says.

To do this, QA utilizes best practices developed by the software industry for usability, which they apply to both print and software products. It’s not enough to just say that our products work; they also have to work well, be easy to use, be useful, consistent, and pleasing to look at.

Every product’s forms and norms, for instance, are developed with the examiner in mind. Is there space for examiners to note every piece of important information they will need? Is everything clearly labeled? Is the pertinent information organized in a way that will make sense during administration and scoring?

“Whether designing a graphical user interface or a paper assessment form, it is paramount to highlight important information and present it in a readable fashion,” Brummer explains. Even if the forms and norms tables are technically accurate, anything that may be confusing or hard to read introduces the potential for user error, which increases the risk of the user misreporting results.

PAR’s confidence in each product can be largely attributed to QA’s strong commitment to each assessment.

You may know the Personality Assessment Screener (PAS) can help you assess a broad range of clinical problems. Here are five things about the PAS that you may not know:

1. The PAS screens for the major domains covered in the trusted Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI). Its 22 items are those from the PAI that are the most sensitive to a broad range of contemporary clinical problems.


2. The PAS requires only a 4th-grade reading level. This enables individuals with poor reading skills to provide accurate self-descriptions.


3. The PAS assesses the potential for emotional and behavioral problems. Items are organized into 10 different scores that represent 10 distinct clinical problem domains.


4. The PAS is designed for use as a triage instrument. It’s suitable for use in health care and mental health settings, corporate employee assistance programs, and college health services.


5. The PAS is quick and convenient. Administration takes just 10 minutes and is available in pencil and paper format or 24/7 via PARiConnect, our online assessment platform.

Learn more about the PAS today!