E-Assessment

Teaching and learning activities supported by technology have been in higher education for awhile. As course management systems have matured, increased options have become available to integrate assessment options into existing e-Learning activities. Regardless of whether a course is 100% online, blended, or web-enhanced, options are available to use existing technologies for assessment purposes.

Contemporary technologies can provide an effective and efficient means to address both assessment of learning and assessment for learning. These technologies support both traditional and authentic alternative assessment methods (Bennett, 2002). Traditional examinations (multiple choice, short answer, fill-in-the-blank, essay, etc.) can be developed and delivered in the online course. Most courseware also has some type of automated grading feature so student responses are immediately scored. Authentic alternative assessments (case studies, problem-based approaches, performance tasks, etc.) can also be used in online coursework.

The application of learning to real-world problems and situations has increasingly become a focus of assessment. Wiggins (1998) suggests that assessment should be authentic and educative, "…the aim of assessment is primarily to educate and improve student performance, not merely to audit it" (p. 7).

Current thought about assessment includes activities and artifacts to reflect the learner outcomes for an academic program. Many programs are beginning to anchor assessment activities into real-world scenarios to allow students to demonstrate their ability to apply learning to authentic situations. Currently, many programs are working to align teaching and learning activities reflecting desired student learning outcomes to authentic assessment activities and requiring students to submit artifacts to a portfolio system to serve as evidence of student understanding and application.

Technology offers a means to deliver traditional (multiple choice, true/false, short answer, fill-in-the-blank, matching, etc.) examinations and quizzes. Such web-based assessments have advantages over paper-and-pencil administrations in terms of ease of student use, scoring, item analysis, and management. Course management systems provide numerous options for the instructor to shape these types of assessments for both assessment activities and learning activities. Options for different question types, examination time constraints, immediate or delayed feedback, and so forth allow you to design, deliver, and score exams in a variety of ways. It is this flexibility and the template-driven interface that makes creating a varied assessment approach using technology simpler than creating all of the same materials for paper-and-pencil assessments. Perhaps more importantly, most systems offer automated grading and entry into a gradebook. By creating examinations in these management systems and specifying options, you will be able to save time usually devoted to grading examination and recording scores.

Various vendors offer essay-scoring software that some universities are successfully deploying to grade essays. Once the software is trained to assess key points and writing outcomes, several universities have found that the automated scoring is more consistent than using multiple Teaching Assistants or Instructors. Use of scanners and score sheets to quickly grade examinations is another example of the use of technology for assessment purposes. This method has less flexibility than assessment via course management systems but is still in wide use in higher education.

Rubrics have been found to be effective for assessing problem solving, communication, collaborative skills (Buzzetto-More & Alade, 2006), and complex skills (Dodge & Pickette, 2001). Petkov and Petkova (2006) suggest rubrics should be considered criteria and rating scales for evaluating product and process. In their study, they found rubrics appeared to standardize assessment, communicate expectations to students, and communicate performance standards to students. Rubrics are seen as particularly useful as a way to assess problem-based activities and simulations, since scores and products may not adequately represent the processes involved in the learning activities.