What happens at your sitting.
This page is for you if you will sit an AIRS-J/1 assessment on StepSim, the official instrument. It explains how a sitting is arranged, what happens on the day, how your result is decided, who sees it, and what you can do next. Each answer links to the rule in the Standard, AIRS-J/1 v2.1.
Sittings are arranged through your trainer or L&D team, who confirm your date. No sitting has run yet.
Before the day · On the day · Your result · Who sees it · If you do not meet the Standard · Preparing · Access support · Appeal · The register · Your data
Certification open
Before the day
How a sitting is arranged.
Sittings are arranged through your trainer or your organisation's learning and development (L&D) team, who confirm your date. No sitting has run yet. If you want to present on your own, without an employer or a trainer, contact AIR APAC. Your result is then released only to the people you name (section 12.6).
Before the day, your facilitator registers you for the session. Before you start, you are told who will receive your result and what it may be used for (section 12.6), and that using AI tools outside the assessment is not allowed (section 9.2).
If you need an access support, ask for it at least 10 working days before your sitting. See access support below.
Any person may present for assessment, with or without training. Training and practice can help you, but they never decide your result (section 4.3).
On the day
What happens on the day.
Your identity is checked
At the start, the facilitator checks you against your registration before you begin. The check and its method are recorded in the assessment log (section 9.1). Today, certifying sittings take place in the room with the facilitator. A remote sitting needs a live identity check, and StepSim does not offer one yet. A sitting for a hiring decision takes place in person, under supervision.
You work through held-back missions
A certifying sitting uses at least three held-back missions (section 8.4). A mission is a work scenario on StepSim in which you check sources, use the AI tools provided, make decisions and give your reasons. Held-back missions are never shown in any demonstration and are not used for practice.
At each decision point, StepSim records your decision before it shows you what happened next. A change you make after you see the consequence is recorded as a new decision, not as a correction of the first one (section 8.6).
AI inside the assessment: use it
The AI tools inside the assessment are there to be used. Choosing not to use them is not scored as caution (section 9.2).
AI outside the assessment: not allowed
Using any AI tool outside the assessment during a certifying sitting is not allowed. It counts as misrepresentation, and it is one of the grounds on which a credential can be suspended or revoked (section 9.2, section 18.4).
What is scored
Your result comes only from what you did in the missions: your decisions, the material you produced, the sources you checked, the reasons you gave, the changes you made and your timing (section 8.7). Keystroke capture, guesses about your emotions, video analysis and biometric signals are never used for scoring.
On StepSim, published rules turn the record of what you did into scores. No AI model grades your work. Every observation points to evidence in the record, and you can see that evidence (section 8.8).
Your result
How your result is decided.
Each observation of what you did is scored from 0 to 4 (section 7): 0 is Not demonstrated, 1 Emerging, 2 Competent, 3 Proficient and 4 Exemplary. The threshold is 2, Competent: the behaviour appeared without prompting and was adequate to the situation. The nine skills that are assessed are described on the dimensions page.
You are Certified only if all six rules are met (section 12.2):
- no one of the nine skills scores below 2.0;
- each of the four areas averages at least 2.0, and strength in one area does not make up for weakness in another;
- your overall average is at least 2.3;
- each skill has at least three observations from different decision points;
- the decisions assessed cover the range of stakes the Standard requires;
- confidence in the result is Moderate or High.
If any one rule is not met, the result is Not Certified.
The bands, in words
A certified result is reported as a band, not a raw number, to avoid false precision and league tables (section 12.4).
| Band | Overall average | Also needed | What it says |
|---|---|---|---|
| Certified | 2.3 to 2.9 | Every floor met | Every skill and every area met the threshold, Competent, and your overall average was at least 2.3. |
| Certified with Merit | 3.0 to 3.4 | No skill below 2.5 | Your overall average reached Proficient: your judgment fitted the consequences, and you recorded it so that another person could check your reasoning. |
| Certified with Distinction | 3.5 and above | No skill below 3.0 | Every skill averaged Proficient or higher, and your overall average was halfway or more from Proficient to Exemplary. Exemplary means you also left a rule or check that would guide the next decision of the same kind. |
Confidence
Every result carries a confidence level: High, Moderate, Provisional or Insufficient. It describes how much evidence there is, not your ability (section 10). Certification needs Moderate or High. A Provisional or Insufficient result is a development reading: it is reported to you, and it decides nothing about your certification or your employment (section 12.8).
What you receive
What you receive, and who sees it.
You receive your full result whether or not you certify (section 12.5): the score for each of the nine skills, the four area scores, your band, the confidence level, the kinds of stakes the missions covered, the level descriptions applied, the share of scoring done with model assistance, and the evidence for each observation.
Every report and credential also states in plain words what the result does and does not say. It describes your judgment in AI-enabled work. It does not certify your expertise in a field, your general AI knowledge or your ability to manage people (section 2.2).
Before you start, you are told who will receive your result and what it may be used for (section 12.6).
| Who | What they see |
|---|---|
| You | Your full result and its evidence, always. |
| Your employer, if it arranged the assessment for its own staff | Your result by name: skill and area scores, band, confidence and the evidence behind each observation. It receives every result of the sittings it arranged, including a Not Certified result (section 9.4). You are told beforehand that the result may be used for development, assessment, promotion and hiring. |
| Your employer's facilitator | Every result of the session. |
| Your line manager | The results of their own people. |
| An employer you apply to for a job | Your result by name, for that hiring decision only. Only the people deciding on the role receive it. A Not Certified result is labelled "Did not meet the Standard on this Assessment", with its confidence. You receive your own report no later than the employer. No market is open for hiring use yet. |
| People you name, if you present on your own | Only the parties you name receive your result. |
| Your institution, if you are a student | The rules for students are on the Campus page (section 13.4). |
| Anyone else | Only what the register shows, and your name only if you agree. See the register below. |
Your employer is never told whether you used an access support. An organisation that arranged assessments for ten people or more also receives a team view: counts of levels and bands across the group. Below ten, no team view is given. AIR APAC publishes no ranking of individuals (section 12.7).
If you do not meet the Standard
A Not Certified result, and sitting again.
A Not Certified result means that at least one of the six rules was not met on this assessment. You still receive your full result and its evidence, so you can see which rule was not met (section 12.5).
You may sit again no sooner than 30 days after a Not Certified outcome (section 9.4). The Standard says that you then receive a different form, which is a different set of held-back missions. A second form for StepSim does not exist yet. The instrument specification states this. A further sitting is arranged in the same way as the first, through your trainer or L&D team.
Two rules give you a further mission or sitting at no charge:
- If your result is about to be released for a hiring or promotion decision, and a change of one level in a single observation would change the outcome between Certified and Not Certified, AIR APAC offers you one further held-back mission before release. Your result is then computed on all missions (section 12.8.1).
- If you applied for a job and your result is Provisional or Insufficient, the employer is told only that no employment-grade result was obtained. AIR APAC offers you one further sitting on an unseen form, at no charge to you (section 12.6).
If your employer arranged the assessment, it receives a Not Certified result too. The register also records a Not Certified outcome, but a lookup shows only the register fields, with no scores, no employer and no transcript content.
Preparing
How to prepare, and what to avoid.
Training and practice help, but they never decide your result. A training session or a practice run gives a development reading only (section 12.8). In the assessment you are expected to use the AI tools provided (section 9.2).
Practice missions are not certifying missions. A certifying mission is retired when too many people have seen it, when it appears in public preparation material, or when results suggest that its content has leaked. Retired missions may be released for practice, and AIR APAC publishes the list of released practice missions (section 9.3). No list has been published yet.
Do not look for, keep or share the content of certifying missions. Possession of leaked mission content is a ground for suspending or revoking a credential (section 18.4). AIR APAC watches for published solutions and coaching material (section 9.5).
Access support
If you need access support.
You may ask for an access support before your assessment, and you receive a written decision with reasons (section 8.9). A support may change how material is presented, the timing, or the way you give and receive information, only to remove a barrier that has nothing to do with what is measured. It may not reveal a decision path or an expected answer. An approved support is recorded, and it does not limit the level you can reach (section 7.1.1).
Ask at least 10 working days before your sitting. AIR APAC acknowledges your request within 3 working days and decides within 5 working days. Your employer is never told whether you used an access support. If a support is denied, or not applied correctly, you may appeal.
Appeal
If you disagree with your result.
You may appeal within 30 days. You may appeal a certification decision, a result released to an employer, an access-support decision that affected your access to the assessment, or a suspension. The first appeal is free (section 18.5).
The grounds are: a level description applied wrongly; an observation that the evidence in your transcript does not support; a procedural failure; an access support denied or applied wrongly; an assessor conflict that was not disclosed; a serious technical failure; a translation or localisation defect that could change what was measured; the near-cut rule not applied; or the required sitting mode not met (section 18.6). Disagreeing with a level description itself is not a ground for appeal. It is a comment on the Standard.
A reviewer who was not involved in your result or your sitting decides, and you receive the outcome and the reasons in writing. An appeal on a result released for hiring is decided within ten working days. If you appeal within five working days of release, the employer holds any adverse communication that rests on the result until the decision. A training session or practice result cannot be appealed, because it decides nothing. A comment on it is a complaint.
The register
The register, and checking your credential.
If you certify, your credential is recorded in the public register with its credential code, track, role edition where one is used, band, confidence, standard version, issue date, expiry date, status and the plain-language scope description (section 14.1). The register does not record your employer, your skill scores, the stakes profiles or anything from your transcript.
Your name appears in the register only if you give separate consent, and you can withdraw that consent without any effect on your credential. Otherwise, anyone who has your credential code can check the entry (section 14.2). Checking is free and needs no account (section 14.3).
The credential belongs to you. It stays valid when you change employer, and no employer, sponsor or delivery partner may withhold, revoke or claim it, even if they paid for it (section 14.4). It is valid for two years from issue. To renew it, you sit a full new assessment against the version of the Standard in force at that time (section 18.1, section 18.2).
Your data
What happens to your data.
Exeter Labs runs the sitting on StepSim and holds the data. AIR APAC owns the Standard and decides each result. Your data is held by AIR APAC and Exeter Labs, may be processed outside your country, and is not sold (section 12.9, section 14.7).
Assessment data is used to operate, check and improve the Standard and StepSim. Where your transcript or result is kept only for that improvement work, it is kept without your name and contact details, unless you agreed to a named record. Your transcript and result are kept for as long as they are needed for certification, recertification, appeal, the evidence programme and the licence of the organisation that arranged your assessment (section 14.6). How long each record is kept, and the country where it is held, will be published before the first sitting.
You may obtain your own transcript and result, and ask for factual errors in them to be corrected (section 14.5). Write to indhran@airapac.org. The privacy policy explains how AIR APAC handles personal data.
Other questions about your sitting: use the contact page and choose "Candidate help", or write to indhran@airapac.org. We reply within two working days.