ETS, the nonprofit group that created the SAT in the US and a number of other standardized tests, has worked with educators, information technology experts, and other institutions to develop a new test designed to measure what it means to be literate in the digital age.

Beta testing for the new ETS exam, called the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Literacy Assessment, began on Jan. 31 and ends March 31. A full “high stakes” version of the test is expected to be available early in 2006.

There’s an demo of the test available that ran well on my computer – needs Flash to play.

The test is built around the five critical components of ICT literacy that are defined on the ETS site::
?? Access – knowing about and knowing how to collect and/or retrieve information.
?? Manage – applying an existing organizational or classification scheme.
?? Integrate – interpreting and representing information, which involves summarizing, comparing and contrasting.
?? Evaluate – making judgments about the quality, relevance, usefulness or efficiency of information.
?? Create – generating information by adapting, applying, designing, inventing or authoring information.

A backgrounder on this initiative can be found on the eSchool News site.