Web-based test and assessment system : design principles and case study

Courseware engineering targets towards the cost-efficient production and maintenance of educational material. We propose a separation of courseware into content parts, presentation parts, and pedagogic and didactic parts as a major step in order to strengthen reusability and adaptability of e-learning contents. This separation should guarantee that specialists can focus on their field and define questions without concerning about presentation or design the look and feel without going into details of the question content. As a case study, we present tetrodo, a framework for web-based education and show its application for the development of test and assessment purposes. Our system supports computer-correctable questions at higher taxonomy levels compared to the multiple-choice and fill-in type supported by commercial e-learning systems. In order to show a flavour what is possible, we give examples from a recent course on Algorithms and Data Structures. We sketch the hierarchy of question patterns built up and report on the authoring tool developed. Finally we describe a new approach in students involvement in questioning and summarize practical experiences so far.