Afi School: the training institution that managed to grow its expansion in record time

Today, we will discover how Afi School has strengthened its leadership among finance, economics, technology, and sustainability schools.

This vital training institution has quickly managed to adapt to new legislative requests.

Thanks to automated supervision systems, the number of international students completing their programs remotely has also increased.

Afi School

Afi School is a leading training institution specialising in Finance, Economics, Sustainability, Technology and Big Data.

It offers master’s degrees, executive programs, specialisation courses and online courses, and preparation of international and European certifications and its ones. In addition, it provides training programs for companies, masterclasses and open workshops, summer courses and free courses.

The school has managed to position itself among the leaders in its sector and continues its process of advance and innovation. Moreover, Afi Escuela Mexico was founded several years ago, and not only does it provide training in Mexico but also to students from other countries in Latin America.

Even before the pandemic and the legislative changes, the objective of Afi School was to differentiate itself from its competitors and to be recognised as a benchmark in terms of training in finance, economics, technology and sustainability.

We can summarise the trajectory of Afi School in the following points:

• almost 30 years of history throughout which they have trained great professionals in the sector
• approximately 50000 students in the last year
• a collaboration with more than a hundred large companies and leading companies
• an educational methodology that incorporates the latest technologies
• school with presence not only in Spain but also in Mexico and delivery and development of programs in other countries

One differentiating feature should be highlighted: the eminently practical and applied nature of its training.

From the first contact, the company conveys its philosophy, according to which training can make a difference to an organisation in the current situation. As stated on their website, knowledge is one of the necessary engines to promote the change in the economic model requested in society.

The challenge

The regulatory changes of the CNMV and the Bank of Spain now require remote supervision tools for online exams and other programs. Evaluating tools facilitate access to their courses by people settled in different cities and countries.

When these modifications were introduced, Afi School began to analyse the options on the market to provide the best answer to its students and guarantee the highest degree of safety.

The start of the pandemic confirms and reinforces this choice.

“Student assessments should guide them towards an effective learning experience, verifying their skills and knowledge in the subject.

In the current context, where the weight of distance training, in its multiple modalities, is becoming increasingly important, it is necessary to carry out the evaluation process remotely, by using digital and secure tools.

SMOWL is a tool that has contributed to this work at Afi School. With it, we allow equal access for students from anywhere.

We offer them the security of having all the authentication guarantees for both the examinees and the examiners”.

Mónica Guardado, Managing Director at Afi School

The perfect solution for the needs of this training institution

To reach the goal and choose the best proctoring plan, Afi School reviewed the price and quality of each solution.

Automated or registered proctoring emerged as the safest and most viable option. And the best value-for-money solution found was one of the SMOWL software options.

What caught their attention, in addition to the different plans and the scalability offered by the Smowltech service, was:

• the form of a unified collection of results
• the arrangement of images with specific details at each moment
• easy export of results
• the software interface where, thanks to an intuitive traffic light, you can see at a glance whether or not a student has engaged in inappropriate behaviour

In the end, Afi School selected the SMOWL+ plan due to the requirements requested by the regulators and the level of security guaranteed for students, with Smowltech being a European provider that satisfactorily complies with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The SMOWL+ plan includes webcam detection, computer monitoring, audio capture, and monitoring of every other connected device.

The opinions of the students of Afi School

In general, the experience has been positive, and many appreciate being able to carry out exams this way.

It seems that proctoring has come to stay. And this is confirmed by an internal analysis carried out by the school. According to the report, more than 50% of the students would continue to take the tests online, thus avoiding unnecessary travel.

It should be noted that there are detections of bad practices among those who choose to take onsite tests and those who have had negative experiences due to less familiarity with the digital environment.

The students enjoyed the personalised attention and the agility of solving issues since Smowltech includes a complete support service, where both the client and their students are supported as far as possible.

The results

Afi School highlights that the implementation and usage of an online supervision tool have been an inspiring experience in terms of the use of technology.

SMOWL has been revealed as a complete tool at a technical level, which has improved the security of the tests and acts in compliance with the legal conditions requested today.

Thanks to the application of a proctoring tool, it has been possible to correctly authenticate the identity of the users and prevent fraud during the evaluations.

At the same time, evaluations have been allowed to be carried out from any location, avoiding the expenses generated during a traditional assessment.

The software offered by Smowltech has provided solid support to evaluators in decision making, ensuring a fair and safe environment to validate the knowledge of those evaluated people.

On a practical level, it has meant simplifying processes and improved student experience, saving time and money.

Tips from Afi School to implement proctoring in your centre

Some people at Afi School believe that the use of online supervision tools will increase with the growth of online programs and the constant demands of the market. Furthermore, Afi School will keep growing and improving its offer.

Its technical team recommends becoming familiar with the proctoring tools and carrying out previous tests to check the correct functioning of the software due to the location or internet coverage to which end users may have access.

The use of SMOWL has allowed this training institution to update quickly and respect the current requests demanded by the market.

Also, thanks to this, the growth of Afi School continues to rise.

Conclusions

By implementing the SMOWL+ tool, Afi School has demonstrated its ability to run powerful and innovative software in record time.

The launch has been fast and effective, allowing it to reach users from all over the world. In addition, proctoring is now accepted and recommended by the most relevant entities in the banking, finance, insurance, consulting and technology sectors, among others.
Afi School has been one of the first to achieve this and has 100% online modalities. Every time more programs and more students are added. And the scalability of SMOWL makes it a perfect system to join this type of project, which may require sudden changes or extensions of resources.

Do you want to maintain the integrity of your online assessments and reach more users?