The JISC definition of e-assessments:
the end-to-end electronic assessment processes where ICT is used for the presentation of assessment activity, and the recording of responses. This includes the end-to-end assessment process from the perspective of learners, tutors, learning establishments, awarding bodies and regulators, and the general public (JISC, 2007, p43)was widely used but what about other terminology, such as: “digital exams”, “online exams”, “web-based assessment”.
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In the Association for Learning Technology Conference 2017, it was discussed how e-assessment is used in the academia. While some consider the submission of assignment via the VLE to be an e-assessment, some others consider the full end-to-end process of online submission and online marking as e-assessment, while many others believing in various shades in between (Alston, 2017).
In this context we explored concept e-assessments from five main stakeholder perspectives: students or the participants who takes the assessment, administrators or managers who organise assessments, assessors who assess the students, authors who set the assessment, and quality assurance those who oversee the quality assurance of assessments.
Conole and Warburton (2005) present a categorisation of assessments in their work: formative (administered to assist the learning process), summative (administered for grading purpose), diagnostic, formal/informal (invigilated or not), and final/continuous. With our experience of assessment in our own institutions and beyond we believe that exams (examinations) are considered by most stakeholders to be different to other assessments, here we define exams as:
a formally convened, timed, summative assessment of a module under prescribed conditions (adapted from UCEM, 2017).From the point of view of authors and assessors there is not much difference between formative and summative assessments. In summative assessments all learning outcomes should be covered and in formative assessments timely meaningful feedback should be provided for the student to learn. On the other hand, we see a big difference of summative and formative assessments for the participants. Formative assessments are for learning and as they do not carry marks for the module some students may not even attempt these. While summative assessment is for grading that carries high importance to the students. Also, the fact that whether the summative assessment is in the form of an exam or other (for example, coursework) makes a marked difference for the participants. If the assessment is formative there is generally little role for administrators as these increasingly tend to be quizzes or short answer questions where automatic answers can be provided. On the other hand, if the assessment is summative administrators have greater role and if the assessment is an exam even greater one. For the quality assurance too summative assessment would be important.
What are your views on our conceptualisation?
References
- Alston, P. (2017). E-assessment – is the academy ‘speaking’ the same language? Association for Learning Technology Conference, 5-7 September 2017, Liverpool. Available at: https://altc.alt.ac.uk/2017/sessions/e-assessment-is-the-academy-speaking-the-same-language-1681
- Conole, G. & Warburton, B. (2005). A review of computer-assisted assessment, Research in Learning Technology, 13(1), 17-31.
- JISC (2007). Effective Practice with e-Assessment: An overview of technologies, policies and practice in further and higher education, HEFCE. Available at: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20140702223032/http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/themes/elearning/effpraceassess.pdf
- University College of Estate Management (UCEM) (2017). Academic and General Regulations for Students: Applicable to all UCEM Programmes at Levels 4 to 7. Available at: https://www.ucem.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/UCEM-Academic-and-General-Regulations-for-Students-Levels-4-7-FINAL-v9.00-Accessible.pdf
