Abstract:

The paper presents 6 years’ authors’ experience in teaching an “E-Learning Assessment Methods” course to students from the Master of Science Programme (MSc.P.) “E-Learning”, taught at the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics (FMI) of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” (SU), Sofia, Bulgaria.

Assessment is a key part in each organised learning enterprise – both throughout the learning period and finally, being it conducted for formative or summative reasons or both. The E-Learning mode of study organisation brings its specificities to the assessments of learning, stimulating the integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools in the assessment process. This brings possibilities about automation and facilitation of assessment instruments’ design and development, the administering of assessment to the learners, carrying out the assessment itself, evaluating the results, and communicating feedback to the learners. Moreover, the calculation possibilities of ICT in general, and the widening variety of assessment tools, embedded in the Learning Management Systems (LMS) and Learning Content Management Systems (LCMS) make it possible for the learning and assessment designers and teachers to explore and apply wider repertoire of assessment methods and their combinations that are harder to be applied in a “traditional” classroom environment.
The outlined situation of greater easiness of applying various automated assessment methods and instruments in e-learning binds the trainers of e-learning designers to prepare their students in depth both theoretically and practically for design, development, and application of varied scientifically sound assessment instruments.

The main goals of this paper are:
1. To present the considerations and the applied systems approach as the design strategy of the course, and how it relates to the overall MSc.P. “E-Learning” strategy and the other courses in the programme;
2. To describe the course goals, structure, content, activities, course practical assignments (interim and final), and course assessments;
3. To present the “technology layer” in the course – the ICT tools and the used LMS that provide opportunities for application of the studied assessment methods, and how these assessment tools are used in the course and throughout the whole programme;
4. To stress on the two main distinctive parts of the course – the design of quantitative assessment methods (standardised tests), and the design of authentic assessment methods, as major theoretical and practical foundations of the course;
5. To present the major practical results and outcomes of the course in terms of final student projects and their integration in other key MSc. courses’ production.

Following the outlined goals, the paper is organised as follows. First, an introduction is presented, which gives the background of the MSc. P. “E-Learning” at FMI, SU, outlining its main characteristics, structure, and curriculum. Second, a short overview of related work with similar e-assessment courses is presented. Then five sections are presented, following the five main goals of the paper, described above. Finally, the last section presents considerations for further amendment of the “E-Learning Assessment Methods” course quality, on the base of the obtained results throughout the already six years of course’s implementation and continuous improvement, and having in mind the developments and future trends in the (e-)learning domain.

Keywords:

e-learning, assessment, standardised tests, authentic assessment, Learning Management System.