Implementing Online Assessment for Summative Purpose in an Electronic Engineering Course

Benefits of Online Assessment

E-learning system is a general platform to hold online assessment although there are other efforts using web-based platform (Joglar, Martin, Colmenar and Martinez, 2009), (Ferzli and Karam, 2006), (Ming, 2006). Online assessment system is defined as an assessment system that assumes the role of students as inquirers who are actively engaged in the learning process, which in turn activates learning at higher-order thinking levels (Beebe, Vonderwell, and Boboc, 2010). Research indicates several benefits of using online assessment. Rich and Yihong (2010), and Ming (2005) express an obvious advantage of online assessment over the paper assessment. The researchers indicate that online assessment offers more flexibility to both lecturers and students. For students, the online assessment provides a flexible means in attempting the assessment and receiving prompt feedback. Online quiz can be anywhere as it provides a flexible test environment. As for the lecturer, online assessment saves time to grade quiz or test given to students. It also provides an effective way of grading a quiz, as such, the workload will automatically be reduced. Benefits of online assessment provide an effective way of formative assessment which can be done on regular basis, hence permitting students to evaluate their knowledge independently (Joglar, Martin, Colmenar and Martinez, 2009). Outcomes of tests /quizzes normally will be known immediately, therefore students will become more interested in learning. Formative-style assessment could also provide a communication tool between students and lecturers (Shanshan and Yonghua, 2010). Other benefits of using online assessment also have been explored in distance learning such as conducting group assessment (Soon and Sarrafzadeh, 2010); plagiarism detection (Diederich, 2006); and multi-dimensional evaluation (Ozkan and Koseler, 2009).