Modeling units of assessment for sharing assessment process information: Towards an assessment process specification

Abstract

IMS Question and Test Interoperability (QTI) is an e-learning standard supporting interoperability and reusability of assessment tests/items. However, it has insufficient expressiveness to specify various assessment processes, especially, the new forms of assessment. In order to capture current educational practices in online assessment from the perspectives of assessment process management, we extend QTI and IMS Learning Design (LD) with an additional layer that describes assessment processes in an interoperable, abstract, and efficient way. Our aim is an assessment process specification that can be used to model both classic and new forms of assessment, and to align assessment with learning and teaching activities. In this paper, the development of the assessment process specification and its benefits and requirements are described. A conceptual model, the core of the assessment process specification is presented. The proposed conceptual model has been subject to a first validation, which is also described. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.