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Smadi et al., 2009).
e-Assessment systems which can be used for
both skill and knowledge assessment while adhering
to most common standards and specifications are an
interesting research and development goal.
The rest of the paper is organized into five
sections where section 2 gives a general introduction
about the standards and specifications used. In
section 3, goals for developing a TEA system will be
explained with more emphasis on logic course while
also considering about e-assessments in general.
Last two sections will explain about the design and
architecture of the system and discussions
consecutively.
2 STANDARDS AND
SPECIFICATIONS FOR
E-ASSESSMENTS
Most used standards and specifications associated
with learning and assessment objects are; IMS Basic
LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability), IMS QTI
(Question and Test Interoperability), IMS LIP
(Learner Information Package) (IMS GLC, 2011),
IEEE PAPI (Public and Private Information) (CEN
WS-LT LTSO, 2011), LOM (EduTech Wiki, 2011),
and SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference
Model) (ADL, 2011). Additionally there are some
assessment formats whose main objective is the
authoring and sharing of assessment resources. This
is an important factor which has to be considered
when communicating and exchanging information
between different systems, especially to maintain the
interoperability among systems. These assessment
formats should include the features such as response
and outcomes processing (Proc), metadata
capabilities (Meta), hybrid question management
(Hybrid), correct response indication (C.R.) and
multiple responses (M.R.) related to one question
(Gutiérrez et al., 2010). Based on the above features,
a comparison of some of the assessment formats are
illustrated in Table 1.
From the above table, mostly considering about
interoperability; IMS QTI, Hot Potatoes,
MoodleXML, OpenMark and Blackboard can be
taken into account. However, Blackboard is a
commercial software and both Hot Potatoes and
OpenMark are application specific (Gutiérrez,
Kloos, and Crespo, 2010). Some systems are
commercial/specific and they are not built according
to standards as with open source systems, which can
be easily integrated with other tools. As a result we
can take MoodleXML, a common format of the
popular and most used open source LMS, Moodle
(Moodle, 2011) and IMS QTI, a defector standard.
Table 1: Key features in assessment formats.
Formats Meta Proc M.R. C.R. Hybrid
IMS QTI x x x x x
Hot Potatoes x x x x x
MoodleXML x x x x x
OpenMark x x x x x
Blackboard x x x x x
DocBook x x
FML x
QAML x x
SuML x
To communicate between LMSs and other tools
while maintaining the interoperability, IMS has
introduced some standards such as IMS Basic LTI
and IMS-LIP. IMS Basic LTI, allow remote tools
and content to be integrated into a LMS in a secure
and interoperable manner. IMS-LIP specification
addresses the interoperability of internet-based
Learner Information systems with other systems that
support the Internet learning environment. Also for
tracking and transferring data between systems
SimpleOutcome (IMS GLC, 2011) service can be
used with OAuth (OAuth, 2011), an open protocol
which allows secure API authorization in a simple
and standard method for web applications.
3 KNOWLEDGE AND SKILL
ASSESSMENT
There are subjects in which the skill levels of
students are needed to be evaluated in order to
qualify students of that particular subject. When
considering mathematics as an example, the more
general e-assessment systems offer a range of
question types but they are not designed to offer a
specific assessment experience. Therefore, systems
and tools for e-assessment of mathematics have to
add to more general characteristics of e-assessment
systems, the possibility to represent mathematical
notation first, to recognize symbolic representations,
secondly and to asses complex processes and not
only knowledge
These raised the need to go beyond ‘usual’ type
of questions and incorporate a dynamic and an
interactive user-friendly dimension into e-
assessments. In particular, it is needed to develop a
system for e-assessments of skill acquirement, which
can communicate with currently available LMSs,
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