With so many technologies available, instructors are faced with tough decisions on what the best ways are to plan, build, deliver, score, provide feedback, analyse and improve their assessments. What exactly is “e-assessment” anyway, and how can I learn from other’s experiences to help guide me with my choices?
eAssessment used to be described as the process to make the process of assessment better through efficiency which would otherwise require human assessors. Baker and O’Neil in 1995 argued that factors such as construction, selection, delivery, item analysis, interpretation, scoring and score presentation (as cited in Nekoueizadeh, Bahrani (2014)) formed e-assessment in earlier definitions. More recently, Buzzetto-More argued that e-assessment points to processes within the educational community that adopt the current technologies available to build upon assessment life-cycle processes. These current technologies can now provide rich data including pre and post testing, diagnostics, student tracking, analytics, project-based learning and authentic assessment, data aggregation and analysis (as cited in Nekoueizadeh, Bahrani (2014). From there, eAssessment has been described as the way technology is used across the assessment life-cycle to support electronic submissions of assignments, as well as marking and feedback (Gray, Ferrell, 2016). JISC also refers to e-assessment as Electronic Management of Assessment (EMA) in their 2016 guide on the topic entitled Electronic management of assessment.
Summarising, assessment relates to the purpose (formative, diagnostic or summative) and features (validity, reliability, fairness and accessibility) of the assessment. e-Assessment must maintain those features of assessment.
Contained on the e-Assessment pages on this BbTips site are examples and reflections from current University of Windsor instructors about their various e-assessment methods, their pros and cons, and lessons learned. The goal is to expand a digital learning community through experiences of other instructors to enrich the body of knowledge on this topic. You too can add your assessments through the link provided. If you choose to share your approaches online, a member of the Centre will contact you for Teaching and Learning prior to any content being published to ensure the accuracy of materials posted.
Ferrell, G. & Gray, L. (2014). Guide to the Electronic Management of Assessment. Bristol, UK: JISC. Retrieved November 3, 2014, from http://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/electronic-assessment-management
Nekoueizadeh, M., & Bahrani, T. (2014). Expansion of Virtual E-Assessment Via Framework in Web-Based Courses. Journal: Journal of Advances in Linguistics, 3(1).