The Internet Implementation of the Hierarchical Aggregate Assessment Process with the “Cluster” Wi-Fi E-Learning and EAssessment Application — A Particular Case of Teamwork Assessment

A Wi-Fi e-learning and e-assessment Internet application named “Cluster” was devel‐ oped in the context of a research project concerning the implementation of a team‐ work assessment mobile application able to assess teams with several levels of hierarchy. Usually, teamwork assessment software and Internet applications for sev‐ eral hierarchy level teams are included in the field of Management Information Sys‐ tems (MIS). However, some assessment tasks in teams with several levels of hierarchy and assessment may be performed in an educational context, and the existing applica‐ tions for the assessment and evaluation of teams with several levels of hierarchy are not applications dedicated to the assessment of students in an educational context. The “Cluster” application is able to present the course material, to train the students in teams as well as to present individual and team assessment tasks. The application’s special functionalities enable it to assess the teams at several levels of hierarchy, which constitute the hierarchical aggregate assessment process. In effect, the members of the teams may have appointments of team member, team leader and team adminis‐ trator that supervises team leaders. This application can therefore evaluate simultane‐ ously different knowledge and skills in the same assessment task based on the hierarchical position of the team member. The summative evaluation of the applica‐ tion consists of work to submit as well as objective examinations in HTML format, while the formative evaluation is composed of assessment grid computer forms of self-assessment and peer assessment. The application contains two mutually exclusive modes, the assessor mode and the student mode. The assessor mode allows the teach‐ er to create courses, manage students, form the teams and also assess the students and the teams in a summative manner. The student mode allows the students to follow © 2015 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. courses, write exams, submit homework, perform in teams and submit selfand peers formative assessment. The theoretical consideration of the project establishes the link between hierarchical aggregate assessment applications and management information systems (MIS). The application is an electronic portfolio (e-portfolio) management system in the competency-based learning and an Internet test administration system in the mastery learning approach. The aim of the chapter is to introduce the reader to the field of hierarchical aggregate assessment and to show how to implement complex assessment tasks with several levels of hierarchy into an Internet software application.