Metamodel for evaluating the performance of ICT in education

Abstract

Performance evaluation is an effective way to promote the sustainable development of ICT in education. Current researches pay little attention to the “meta” layer of how ICT is applied into education, only concentrating on its level evaluation or one-off static evaluation and leaving its continuous enhancement or sustainable development behind. This paper simplifies the whole performance evaluation framework by means of “meta” ideology, and finally extracts four core elements according to performance theory and metamodeling technology, i.e. performance evaluation dimension, performance evaluation item, performance improving trail, and performance relation. Upon the performance evaluation metamodel of ICT in education is proposed, then followed by its metamodel architecture. The metamodel and its architecture as a whole give a solid, theoretical support and guidance to the construction of performance evaluation model (and the criteria or indicators) in practice. In addition, this metamodel in the highest level provides a general and unified specification for many existing models in this field, enabling a common, clear and unambiguous description of these models. As a result, these existing models and indicators (and some others to be proposed) can be explained, interpreted or understood under the same framework.