Strategies for online assessment

How you use the online environment to assist us in setting up and managing assessment tasks is really up to you. The possibilities are endless. For those who think that online assessment is limited to computer generated and marked multiple choice, consider some of the following possibilities.

Online assessment may include: submission of assignments in electronic format. Within Microsoft Office programs, the tutor can use the Insert -Comment option to make comments before returning the assignments via email. Another way for tutors to speed up the process is to use a program such as Markin to comment on text based assigments and essays. students work collaboratively on an assessment task utilising a conference board. The conference board can be set up so that groups have private access to certain streams on the conference board for the purpose of working together on a task. Another area can be setup on the board for presentation of projects, assignments etc. The tutor can monitor the discussion and decision making process of individuals and groups and use it to give feedback and grades. submission of assignments in web page format. The student publishes their work as a web-site. In the assessment process, the tutor has to consider the content, site design, navigation, use of external links, etc. tutor observation of students engaged in a task quizzes, which may be in multiple choice format, for students to check their progress or understanding multiple choice tests, eg. of the type used in continuous assessment for diagnostic purposes constructive critique by students of their coursemates' work. Learners post their assessment tasks to a website or conference board and post comments to assist learners in the final formulation of their assessment task. short-answer responses jumbled-sentence questions - see the Tools for Online Assessment page for software which creates these types of quizzes. crossword and gap-fill exercises.

Pam Atkins from Swinburne has developed an excellent web site Online assessment - Let's do it which looks at the issues and options surrounding online assessment. http://project.vetonline.vic.edu.au/LETSDOIT/doit.htm Question Mark Learning Cafe http://www.questionmark.com/us/learningcafe/index.htm