What do we mean by robust and reliable, and what do our stakeholders mean? How do we know if qualifications are robust and reliable, and is e-assessment a help or a hindrance to achieving this? These are some of the questions addressed by John Winkley, Director of AlphaPlus,  in his keynote presentation at the The e-Assessment Question 2012, held in the America Square Conference Centre in the City of London, 21st/22nd March 2012.

Dr. Tom Mitchell of AlphaPlus was an invited speaker at the 'e-Assessment in Practice' symposium, held at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, Shrivenham, on November 10th and 11th 2010. Tom’s presentation focussed on the e-assessment of essay style examinations. One of the aims of the talk was to challenge the idea that all e-assessment has to be about simple, atomic, closed form questions such as multiple choice. In fact most higher level paper based examinations (in HE for example) consist of questions requiring extended answer and essays, all of which require human marking. Tom’s argument is that even for these discursive examinations, there are important drivers to move away from paper based tests and towards on-screen assessment, and that these drivers will become ever more persuasive as paper-based examinations become increasingly anachronistic. Tom was able to demonstrate an e-assessment system developed specifically to support the delivery and human marking of essay style e-assessments, and to discuss the very positive experience that the University of Birmingham have had in introducing the system to fully e-assess a Masters level course.

John Winkley of AlphaPlus was an invited speaker at the 'e-Assessment in Practice' symposium, held at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, Shrivenham, on November 10th and 11th 2010. John gave a very interesting talk on the opportunity and the challenges for e-assessment in relation to Functional Skills. John was able to demonstrate many of the innovative e-assessment items and tools which AlphaPlus have, in partnership with BTL, developed over the years. The focus of the demonstration was to show that the common perception of e-assessment as purely reliant on multiple choice items was wrong, and that with a little innovative thought many kinds of more open tasks can be delivered and marked by computer. John then went on to discuss the challenges that Functional Skills pose for e-assessment, and to argue that even though assessing Functional Skills using e-assessment is decidedly non-trivial, we should definitely try to meet the challenge. The experience of Key Skills has demonstrated the benefits e-assessment delivers to learners, centres, and Awarding Organisations.