Lessons drawn from cases
To summarize, these six exemplary cases demonstrate increased student engagement through interactions in assessment activities. Whether interacting with content, peers or instructors, students have multiple opportunities to (1) reinforce concepts learned, (2) develop deep understanding, and (3) acquire professional skills in assessment. While traditional assessment provides limited interaction with teachers, embedding online assessment in traditional practice can offer better assessment outcomes.
However, it should be noted here that much time and effort is required. The enhancement of assessments that enables students to interact with content and instructors should be developed further, but it is necessary to balance the time needed for preparation and the workload involved in implementation of these types of assessment with the potential learning gains.
A network support system can be a solution: good practice on online assessment can be shared between teachers. Technical advice must be provided. Designing and developing the interactive materials for assessment also needs to be supported, as they were by the e-learning project that supported development of the 45 courses.
To streamline the feedback process for assessment, rubrics can be used to communicate objective assessment criteria more efficiently and effectively (Stevens and Levi, 2005). The use of the electronic mode of feedback through rubrics is increasing rapidly in the education sector.
