Education for a Digital World Advice, Guidelines and Effective Practice from Around Globe, 2008a

14 – Assessment and Evaluation
Example:
WEEK 04 ONLINE ACTIVITY
Step 1: Go to the following online workshop about using
existing data: http://www.k12coordinator.org/onlinece
/onlineevents/assessment/index.htm
(NOTE: The workshop says it takes one hour for each of
the five sections. That is for their purposes. Plan to
spend one or two hours at your own pace. Most of this
will be discussion, since there is not too much to read.)
Step 2: Read through the five sections.
Step 3: BY FRIDAY (9/23) AT 11:59 PM, do the following:
• 10 points—Post two original threads (one answering
each question in this Forum)
• Use your project name in the title of your reply.
Step 4: BY TUESDAY (9/27) AT 5:00 PM, do the following:
• 10 points—Post two reply threads for each question
(one from your team and one from a different team
that does not have two responses yet).
DISCUSSION FORUMS WITH ATTACHMENTS
Discussion forums keep track of the date and time that
assignments are submitted. This feature helps instructors
who may have included a late submission policy in
their syllabus, such as “Students will receive half credit
for late assignments submitted up to two weeks after the
assignment is due.”
MAKING ONLINE AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT AN
ITERATIVE PROCESS
Online work does not require everyone to be in the same
room, at the same time, so you can take advantage of the
online environment to make assessment an iterative
process. As we previously stated, authentic assessment
mimics work that students will encounter in the real
world, such as creating antiviral drugs in a biopharmaceutical
lab, making presentations to potential donors to
a non-profit organization, or teaching civics lessons in
an inner-city high school. In these work environments,
there are benchmarks or milestones that allow people to
check their progress. You can use authentic assessment
methods like the peer review rubric to replicate this process.
For example, you may have the students provide
peer feedback first, as a way to improve their work before
turning it in for a grade, or you may have them
provide it at the same time as your own with the option
to rewrite it. By creating additional parts to each assessment
strategy, students will learn even when you are
evaluating them.
Summary
This has been an overview in some cases and in others a
detailed examination of the types of issues you need to
consider when evaluating student performance in the
online environment. The issues covered in this chapter
include security for online testing, creating quizzes in
WebCT, finding third-party assessment tools, and
authentic assessment strategies.
If you are going to administer an online exam and
students will be on campus, it is important to think
about the computer lab environment. Work with lab
managers to have students use secure browsers and/or
computer monitoring software, like NetSupport. You
can also use Excel with WebQuery to monitor large
numbers of student test submissions. Quiz Settings in
WebCT and in other Learning Management Systems
include, but are not limited to, restricting which IP addresses
(or ranges) can access the quiz itself and setting a
password for the quiz.
This chapter provides valuable information for teachers
using WebCT. In addition to showing you how to
create the different types of questions (multiple choice,
short answer, matching, paragraph, and calculated), it
demonstrates how to link to images and files. Linking to
images can be done using the WebCT Graphic User
Interface (GUI) or with HTML code. Linking to files can
be done using the GUI or JavaScript. It concludes by
looking at grading options for short answer questions.
For those of you who do not have access to, or do not
wish to use, a quiz in a learning management system
(LMS), there are other online assessment tools available.
These third-party tools provide a variety of options,
ranging from quizzes similar to those from an LMS to
crossword puzzles that use vocabulary from your course.
You can also create customized worksheets or include
media like MP3 audio files. Some of these tools are free,
while others require a subscription or fee.
The last section of the chapter discusses a different
type of assessment, called authentic assessment.
Authentic assessment is designed to give students the
opportunity to show their abilities in ways that are
closer to what they will be asked to do in the field they
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