Best Practices in e-Assessment

According to Martell and Calderon (2005), assessment is an ongoing process that involves planning, discussion, consensus building, reflection, measuring, analyzing, and improving based on the data and artifacts gathered about a learning objective.Assessment encompasses a range of activities including testing, performances, project ratings, and observations (Orlich, Harder, Callahan & Gibson, 2004). Impacting education from early childhood through graduate studies, the assessment movement is based on standards and outcomes, measuring results, and holding educational institutions accountable for student learning.Oversight bodies and accrediting agencies are beginning to require the establishment of learner-centered outcomes that reflect the well-rounded knowledge, competencies, and abilities preferred in today's students; the alignment of curriculum to reflect the desired progression and cognitive development of learners; the collection of data that demonstrates the satisfaction of learning objectives; and the use of assessment information to inform decision making (Buzzetto-More, 2006). The use of information technologies and e-learning strategies can provide an efficient and effective means of assessing teaching and learning effectiveness by supporting traditional, authentic, and alternative assessment protocols (Bennett, 2002).According to Vendlinski and Stevens (2002) technology offers new measures for assessing learning that will yield rich sources of data and expand the ways in which educators understand both learning mastery, and teaching effectiveness.The use of information technologies and e-learning to augment the assessment process may include: pre and post testing, diagnostic analysis, student tracking, rubric use, the support and delivery of authentic assessment through project based learning, artifact collection, and data aggregation and analysis. The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the origins, evolution, and key concepts of assessment as well as illustrate some of the ways in which technology and e-Learning serve as the most promising mechanisms for satisfying assessment goals and objectives. This work is based on an exhaustive review of literature, the analysis of a number of critically acclaimed assessment programs, as well as the authors' own work in the development and use of e-Learning in the design, and implementation of an assessment program at a mid-sized institution of higher education located in the rural Eastern Shore of Maryland in the United States.The program being profiled includes computerized longitudinal testing, online diagnostic testing, competitive networked simulations, rubrics, student discussion transcripts, taped presentations, and electronic portfolios.