OnlineAssessment

Online assessment refers to tests and evaluations delivered through digital platforms over the internet. It is used in education, professional credentialing, and recruitment to measure knowledge, skills, or abilities at scale and with rapid feedback.

Typical components include an item bank, a user interface for presenting questions, a scoring engine, and analytics dashboards. Assessments can use formats such as multiple choice, short answer, essay, drag-and-drop, and interactive simulations. Delivery can be timed or untimed, and responses may be auto-scored or reviewed by human assessors. Security features often include user authentication, proctoring, browser lockdown, and data encryption.

Common types include formative assessments to guide learning, summative assessments for grading or certification, and diagnostic assessments to identify gaps. Proctored online exams may be synchronous with live monitoring or unsupervised with automated checks. Assessments can be delivered on desktop or mobile devices and may be integrated with learning management systems.

Applications span higher education, K-12, corporate training, licensing examinations, and recruitment testing. Benefits include scalability, accessibility for remote learners, faster scoring and feedback, and rich data analytics. Limitations include potential for cheating, privacy concerns, digital inequity, and reliance on reliable technology and accessibility compliance.

Standards and interoperability efforts support sharing content and results across systems, with examples such as LTI and QTI. Innovations in the field include AI-assisted item generation, plagiarism detection, adaptive testing that adjusts item difficulty based on responses, and enhanced analytics to inform instruction or hiring decisions.