Advances in E-learning-Experiences and Methodologies

Formative Online Assessment in E-Learning
participate in the evaluation process (Banta, 2003).
Therefore, portfolio is more than a type of assessment,
implying a new consideration of the
teaching process; most importantly, the portfolio
involves a process, rather than a final aim (Agra,
Gewerc, & Montero, 2003).
Trudi Cooper suggests six steps in a portfoliobuilding
process (Cooper, 1997; Cooper & Emden,
2000; Cooper, Hutchins, & Sims, 1999):
1. To identify the areas of skills that the student
should develop.
2. Taking into account these skill areas, to
develop specific learning outcomes to be
achieved by the students.
3. To identify appropriate learning strategies
so that students can achieve their learning
outcomes.
4. To identify performance indicators that
establish whether students have achieved
their learning outcomes and indicate the
evidence the students need to collect.
5. To collect evidence that demonstrates the
students have met the performance indicators.
6. To organize this evidence in a portfolio so
that teachers can easily understand how
the evidence relates to each performance
indicator.
The benefits of portfolio-based assessment
over other assessment approaches have been well
established (see, for example, Biggs & Tang, 1997;
Brooks & Madda, 1999; Cooper, 1999; Hutchins,
Sims, & Cooper, 1999). Love and Cooper (2004)
point out the main advantages of this tool, such
as its capacity to contain many different types of
evidence and from different sources, the active
involvement of students in their processes, equity,
and moderation in the assessment process and
its suitability to assessment in lifelong learning
contexts. Moreover, portfolios provide a means
for students to learn to manage their own professional
development, since they offer them easy
access to evidence of professional or generic
graduate skills (Cooper, 1999; Cooper & Love,
2000, 2001a, 2002).
Online portfolios (the process of presenting via
Web digital evidence of progress of achievement)
have the added advantage of the interactivity
provided by the Web, and the easier possibility
of organization and updating of the material.
Used in conjunction with appropriate software
solutions, online portfolio-based assessment
can relieve teachers of some of the more tedious
aspects of assessment and permit parts of the
assessment process to be automated (Cooper &
Love, 2001b).
As Agra et al. (2003) describe in their experience
of implementation of online portfolio in a
postgraduate degree, students’ portfolios were
accessible online for tutors and peers, so that
teachers could view students’ process and give
feedback to them, and students could also interchange
ideas fluidly with their peers.
A cAse study:
seLF-Assessment And
LeArnIng
This case study illustrates an innovative teaching
experience in the Psychology Faculty at the
University of the Basque Country. In this study a
computer-assisted assessment tool (Hot Potatoes)
was used to design and apply self-assessment
exercises that are automatically corrected online
(Ibabe, Gómez, & Jauregizar, 2006). Learner
satisfaction and learning perception was evaluated.
The main aim of this project was to verify
whether interactive self-assessment improved
university students’ academic results on their
Data Analysis course.
The procedure employed was as follows. First
of all, we acquired additional service of TexToys
Creative Technology program (http://www.hotpotatoes.net/help/lw.php)
in order to record the
results of the Hot Potatoes assessment. Next, we