History

Tests for Higher Standards (TfHS) was founded in 1997 by Dr. S. Stuart Flanagan, who had recently retired from the College of William and Mary, and Dr. David E. W. Mott, who had previously worked in the testing service at the Virginia Department of Education.

TfHS began by developing tests to assess students' achievement with the Virginia Standards of Learning in Mathematics, later followed by English, Science, and History & Social Science. These tests were designed to be hand scored.

R&D Group was formed in 2002 by Dr. Mott to produce Reports Online System (ROS), a new plain-paper scanning, scoring, and web-based reporting system for use with TfHS assessments. After its initial release in 2003, client feedback and feature requests lead to four major and many minor updates to ROS under the TfHS and R&D Group banners.

As ROS matured, more clients began to use their own or third-party test content, so the decision was made to separate the ROS from its TfHS roots. As such, ROSworks LLC was formed in August 2007 by aquiring the assets of R&D Group. The same staff continues to provide the service and product our customers have come to rely on, but ROS has a new look and a new address: www.rosworks.com