An increasing number of institutes, universities, and companies are turning to online assessments to evaluate candidates. But your online assessment will be as good as the assessment platform allows you to be. There are many companies like Janison Online Assessment Solutions offering cloud-based software for assessing students.
When investing in such software, you must look for the availability of certain tools. These will make the assessment process easier for you.
Test Creation and Customization
The whole point of using software is to make things seamless and quicker. So, the assessment platform should have a robust exam creation and customization tool in-built. Since there are different types of questions you can ask, the tool should create every question. So whether it be MCQs, multi-set MCQs, true/false, or slider interaction, the tool should be capable of creating and designing them.
Assessments can be complicated for specific industries where a candidate would require a calculator frequently. The tool should allow you to include such features. It’s better if the tool has a library of templates that allow you to create tests within minutes. Or you can create tests from scratch.
Auto and Semi-Auto Marking
Humans can be inefficient at a repetitive task. And when it comes to going through hundreds of the same questions but for different candidates, things don’t work out well. Many exam boards have even admitted to “guesstimating” grades and evaluation. Some studies claim the existence of errors in standardized tests.
Therefore, to make the assessment process accurate and fair, you should have an automatic marking tool in the assessment platform. The tool also allows you to deliver the results instantly after the exam. So you can evaluate thousands of candidates within a few seconds.
But, understandably, the invigilators would want to have some level of control in marking. For such cases, you may want to have a semi-automatic marking tool.
Test Session Manager
When a test begins, both the candidates and invigilators should have control over the test session. For the candidate, it might be going back and forth between the questions even when in a weak internet connection. The session dashboard reliably shows the test progression, i.e., how many questions are answered and left to answer.
For the invigilator, it might be the ability to pause, resume, and force-submit the answers.
Real-Time Analysis
For certain exams, you may need to analyze the results in real-time. This might be further to customize the next set of questions or increase/decrease the difficulty level.
More commonly, invigilators also like to receive live reports on the exam. So every assessment platform should have a real-time analysis tool.
Proctoring
There’s a high chance of cheating and manipulation in online assessment. Therefore, a proctoring tool is a must for all assessment platforms. The tool should warn the candidates of their activities and force them to stay compliant.
More importantly, it should alert the invigilators of the suspicious activity to take necessary measures in real-time. The proctoring helps ensure the tests are conducted with integrity.
Depending on your needs, you may also want to have the assessment platform to be cross-platform. So it will work seamlessly in all browsers and operating systems. Many assessment platforms like Janison Online Assessment Solutions offer the features mentioned above.
