The use of information and communication technologies in education offers new means of evaluation and examination. e-Testing is a valuable evaluation tool that teachers can use during final exams and students can exploit for self-assessment, in order to ge-Learning, online assessment, e-assessment, web based learning

Coculescu Cristina

Crisan Daniela Alexandra

Stanica Justina Lavinia

English

Research Papers in Economics

1052 
USING ONLINE ASSESSMENT AS A TOOL FOR LEARNING 
 
Stănică Justina Lavinia 
Romanian-American University, Bucharest School of Computer Science for Business Management 1B Expozitiei 
Blvd., district 1, Bucharest lavinia.stanica@cheyenne.ro 0721.708.580 
Crişan Daniela Alexandra 
Romanian-American University, Bucharest School of Computer Science for Business Management 1B Expozitiei 
Blvd., district 1, Bucharest dacrisan@yahoo.com 0721.264.908 
Coculescu Cristina 
Romanian-American University, Bucharest School of Computer Science for Business Management Durau Str., no. 
47, district 1, Bucharest cristina_coculescu@yahoo.com 0740.975.358 
 
The use of information and communication technologies in education offers new means of evaluation and examination. e-
Testing is a valuable evaluation tool that teachers can use during final exams and students can exploit for self-assessment, in 
order to gain insight of their level of understanding the course content.  
Keywords: e-Learning, online assessment, e-assessment, web based learning 
JEL codes: C-88, I-21 
 
1. Introduction 
The  information  and  communication  technologies  development  in  recent  years  facilitates  the  integration  of 
technology with every field, education being no exception. Within the last years, e-Learning, applying the concept 
of  delivering  education  through  technology,  explosively  developed  all  over  the  world.  e-Learning  is  seen  as 
changing the future of education and training, promoting life long learning by enabling learners to learn anytime, 
anywhere and at any pace. 
Assessment plays an important role in the educational process, providing means of recording students’ progress and 
supplying  valuable  feedback  to  them.  Technology,  viewed  as  an  integrated  part  of  education  delivering,  has 
increased the availability of effective assessment tools to be used by students, encouraging self-assessment at all 
stages of the learning process. Therefore, the use of computer based assessment and online evaluation tools has 
rapidly increased within higher education, often incorporated into learning management systems. 
Online assessment is not a simple combination of assessment and technology. The development of technology 
enhanced  evaluation  tools  brings  both  opportunities  and  challenges  for  the  educational  process.  It  has  many 
advantages such as cost effectiveness, time efficiency, unlimited geographic distance, immediate feedback etc. But 
there are also limitations, one concern being the impact that an inappropriate user interface could have on student 
performance [1]. On the other hand, although no one is contesting that some aspects of the assessment can be 
performed much more efficiently and accurately by a computer, there are many other aspects that still require 
human  involvement.  However,  the  general  opinion  is  that  both  students  and  teachers  benefit  when  online 
evaluation is implemented appropriately. 
 
2. e-Testing – an Online Assessment Tool 
e-Testing is an evaluation tool, developed as an alternative to traditional methods of examination. Using such 
software brings a plus to the educational process, improving both learning and examination. The perceived benefits 
for the teacher or course manager include automated grading and student progress recording, facilitating robust data 
analysis,  reporting,  and  flexibility.  The  benefits  for  the  students  usually  focus  on  the  opportunity  for  instant 
feedback, allowing the long-term improvement of their performance [2].  
The  software  product  aims  to  achieve  the  following  functionalities  required for  an  efficient teaching-learning 
process, namely:  
–assessment and self-assessment – based on previously stored questions, assessment tests can be generated, so that 
students can solve them online;  
–recording the students’ performance – the results of the evaluations are stored in a database and can provide the 
history of each student. 
As an online evaluation tool, e-Testing can provide important information for both teachers and students regarding 
the  students’  progress,  being  a  valuable  tool  in  the  learning  process.  The  idea  is  to  use  the  web  to  deliver 
assessment  opportunities  that  allow  the  students  to  gain  a  measure  on  their  understanding  of  course  content. 
Immediate feedback on test results also helps teachers to identify both students’ level of understanding and those 
areas that they might need to concentrate on.   
The product is a Web Application project developed in C# .NET and is able to support two operating regimes: 
–administrator – intended for teachers use, allowing for questions and tests administration, users management, and 
establishing users rights over the application functionality. In addition, the teacher has the possibility to track each 
individual student’s evolution and can obtain various reports and graphical representations of the stored results; 1053 
–user – intended for students use, allowing for their online assessment and self-assessment, using a tests generator. 
The online tests, in the form of multiple choice questions, provide feedback through automatic grading and results 
recording, also providing the correct answers to the students. 
 
3. Teacher Role 
The administrator regime allows the teacher to manage the application users (personal data, test results, users 
rights), and to administrate questions and tests (updating multiple choice questions, number of questions per test, 
examination time). For the classical paper assessment method, there is a possibility to generate tests that can be 
saved in Word format for later printing. 
In addition to users management, the teacher can obtain a series of reports that offer the following information:  
  displaying students having grades that meet certain restrictions; 
  counting and displaying students from one class / year; 
  displaying students from one class that passed / failed ; 
  displaying students from one year that passed / failed; 
  searching a student by name. 
 
 
Fig. 1. Student reports 
 
The  teacher  can  choose  to  visualize  the  complete  data  of  a  student,  including  the  results  from  previous 
examinations. 
 
 
Fig. 2. Student history 
 
Graphical representations in different forms provide more relevant and useful information about various statistical 
situations:  
–students graduation rate; 
–students graduation rate by years of study;  
–students graduation rate in one class;  
–students distribution by years of study;  
–students average results by years of study. 
The second feature of the administrator mode is managing tests; this involves administrating the multiple choice 
questions stored in the database and setting different characteristics of the generated tests, such as the number of 
questions or the examination time.  
Exiting  the administration  mode  and  returning  to  the  login page  allows switching  between the  two  operating 
regimes. 
4. Student Role 
The student mode allows access to testing the application for both authenticated and non-authenticated users. 1054 
Authenticated user is directed to his personal page containing information about his previous tests and his evolution, 
the student having the possibility of generating a new test. If the student does not have a user account he can still use 
the software, but the application only allows generating self-assessment tests without saving the results. 
The test contains a number of multiple choice questions determined by the teacher; the questions will be randomly 
chosen from the database without recurrence. For each question five alternative answers are provided, also in random 
order.  
 
 
Fig. 3. Test generator 
 
User is allowed to scroll between questions and can rethink an answer. For a more effective evaluation, the time 
interval in which the test should be done is determined by the teacher. 
In order to manage the remaining time, two JavaScript functions running on client were defined, combined with a 
C# sequence running on server. 
 
JavaScript:  C#: 
<script language="JavaScript" 
   type="text/JavaScript"> 
 
 function startTime() { 
  var x 
  x=document.getElementById("LbTMin") 
  .innerText 
  document.getElementById("LbTSec") 
  .innerText=x 
  checkTime() 
 } 
 
 function checkTime() { 
  x=document.getElementById("LbTSec") 
  .innerText 
  if (x>0) {x--} 
  var s=x%60 
  var m=(x-s)/60 
  if (s<10) s="0"+s 
  document.getElementById("LbTSec") 
  .innerText=x 
  document.getElementById("LbTimp") 
  .innerText=m+":"+s 
  t=setTimeout('checkTime()',1000) 
 } 
</script> 
private  void  Page_Load(object 
sender, System.EventArgs e){ 
......... 
 if(!IsPostBack) { 
  GenTest(); 
  int i=Global.NrIntrTest* 
    Global.TimpIntreb; 
  LbTMin.Text=i.ToString(); 
  DateTime d=new DateTime(); 
  d=DateTime.Now; 
  d=d.AddMinutes(i); 
  LbTimpMax.Text= 
  d.ToLongTimeString(); 
 } 
 DateTime d1=new DateTime(); 
 d1=Convert.ToDateTime
  (LbTimpMax.Text); 
 TimeSpan  dif=d1.Subtract
  (DateTime.Now); 
 int  jt=Convert.ToInt32
  (dif.TotalSeconds); 
 LbTMin.Text=jt.ToString(); 
 if (jt<0)     
   Response.Redirect 
  ("WebEval.aspx"); 
} 
 
When time expires the user is automatically redirected to the evaluation page. The test result is saved in the 
database and feedback is provided immediately by allowing the student to see the correct and wrong answers he has 
chosen during the test, and by automatically calculating the grade he obtained. The student can also see a graphical 
representation showing the quantum of correct and wrong answers.    
The test, the selected answers and the correct ones, can be saved in a Word file on the client computer, in order to 
be consulted later. 
The user also has the possibility to generate a new test, to return to his personal page or to logout. 
 
5. Conclusion 1055 
The transition from the classical methods of evaluation to the new assessment practices enhanced by information 
and communication technologies, has been shown to be not only effective but also have benefits for students, 
teachers, and course administrators. Some of these benefits can be synthesized as follows [5]: improve student 
learning by identifying their strengths and weaknesses; review and improve the effectiveness of different teaching 
strategies or curricular programs; improve teaching effectiveness; and provide useful data that will help decision 
making. 
e-Testing is a software program intended for educational use, being designed to be utilized as auxiliary teaching 
and learning material for any subject in the curricula. Its functionalities allow generating and managing of students’ 
self-assessment and examination tests, and tracking each student’s performance. 
The software improves, but does not intend to replace the traditional evaluation system. The auxiliary is a useful 
and  practical tool,  for  preparing  self-assessment  and  examinations tests,  coming  to  support both students  and 
teachers.  But,  like  any  other  auxiliary,  it  cannot  replace  some  aspects  of  the  evaluation  process,  such  as  the 
efficiency of the dialogue between teachers and students during the exam and the individual work students need to 
perform in order to acquire deeper knowledge. 
 
References 
 
 
 
 
1. Zhang J., Trifonas P., (2007), Where Are We Now? A Study on Online Assessment, in G. Richards 
(Ed.), Proceedings of World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and 
Higher Education (ELEARN), October 2007, Quebec, Canada, (p. 574-582) 
2. Sim G., Horton M., Strong S., (2004), Interfaces for Online Assessment: Friend or Foe?, 
Proceedings of the 7th HCI Educators Workshop (HCIE'04), April 2004,  Preston, UK, (p.36-40), 
http://www.ics.heacademy.ac.uk/events/presentations/382_grsim_interface.pdf  
3 Anderson T., (2008), The Theory and Practice of Online Learning, Second Edition, Athabasca 
University Press, ISBN 1897425082, 
http://books.google.com/books?id=RifNwzU3HR4C&hl=ro  
4 Sim G., Read J., Holifield  P., (2006), Using Heuristics to Evaluate a Computer Assisted Assessment 
Environment, in E. Pearson & P. Bohman (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on Educational 
Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications, June 2006, (p. 635-642), 
http://www.editlib.org/p/23076 
5 Buzzetto-More N., Alade A., (2006), Best Practices in e-Assessment, in Journal of Information 
Technology in Education, vol 5, 2006, (p.251-269), 
http://jite.org/documents/Vol5/v5p251-269Buzzetto152.pdf  
6 Amoroso D., (2005), Use of Online Assessment Tools to Enhance Student Performance in Large 
Classes, Information Systems Education Journal, vol 3 (4), August 2005, (p.1-10), 
http://www.isedj.org/3/4/ISEDJ.3(4).Amoroso.pdf  

Best Practices in e-Assessment,

Interfaces for Online Assessment: Friend or Foe?,

Use of Online Assessment Tools to Enhance Student Performance in Large Classes,

Using Heuristics to Evaluate a Computer Assisted Assessment Environment,

Where Are We Now? A Study on Online Assessment,

USING ONLINE ASSESSMENT AS A TOOL FOR LEARNING

http://steconomice.uoradea.ro/anale/volume/2009/v4-management-and-marketing/216.pdf

USING ONLINE ASSESSMENT AS A TOOL FOR LEARNING

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