Covering Different Levels of Evaluation Needs by an Internet-Based Computer-Assisted Testing Framework for Collaborative Distributed Test Development and Delivery

It becomes nowadays more and more evident that the design of efficient learning settings and processes does closely rely on an efficient evaluation of learning outcomes that have been generated by these settings. Such an efficient evaluation is indeed required if one seeks to engage in an optimization cycle in which the quality of learning outcomes will provide the main selection criterion among different types of learning settings and pedagogical approaches. The present paper tries to give an overview of the different evaluation needs that can be found in an educational context and deduces the need for an integrated computer-assisted testing framework from this analysis. Such a framework offering the possibility of a collaborative and distributed test development and delivery (two essential characteristics which will be derived from the needs analysis) has now been developed for three years in a research project jointly ruled by the University of Luxembourg and the CRP Henri Tudor (Luxembourg). The characteristics of this computer-assisted testing framework will be given in the second part of the present paper. The research project is now in a state of development where a first public release is scheduled for June 2005