Around 70 attendees were drawn from a balanced mix of academic, industrial and defence backgrounds meeting to examine applications of e-assessment. Adherence to the Chatham House rule [1] makes this report a little more abstract than it might be otherwise.
Purpose of symposia
The purpose of the symposia is given as: “Symposia at Shrivenham provides a forum to Government agencies, military and civilian, industry and research establishments for the exploration and exchange of experience and knowledge, leading to constructive questioning and a synthesising of ideas in a relaxed but professional environment”. [2]
Overview of e-assessment at the symposium
The symposium split into parallel sessions on the first afternoon and a couple of hours of the second morning. It concerned e-assessment from the perspective of industrial suppliers and universities in a fairly even measure - about a dozen representations of each. In-session switching was possible with a little nimble footwork. There was a dominant move to push e-assessment to a richer interaction beyond multiple choice questions with approaches such as natural language processing of freeform responses, customised virtual worlds and the computer algebra system (CAS)-based approach of STACK.
These ranged from visually compelling virtual reality training software through the specific issues of handling freeform textual input with NLP technologies approach to checking programming assignments. Companies offering regulatory compliance solutions engaged with regulating bodies. One presentation was given as a live person engaged in a dialog with a pre-recorded colleague. It was an approach I had not seen done successfully but was an illuminating demonstration of the pros and cons…
Around 70 attendees were drawn from a balanced mix of academic, industrial and defence backgrounds meeting to examine applications of e-assessment. Adherence to the Chatham House rule [1] makes this report a little more abstract than it might be otherwise.
Purpose of symposia
The purpose of the symposia is given as: “Symposia at Shrivenham provides a forum to Government agencies, military and civilian, industry and research establishments for the exploration and exchange of experience and knowledge, leading to constructive questioning and a synthesising of ideas in a relaxed but professional environment”. [2]
Overview of e-assessment at the symposium
The symposium split into parallel sessions on the first afternoon and a couple of hours of the second morning. It concerned e-assessment from the perspective of industrial suppliers and universities in a fairly even measure - about a dozen representations of each. In-session switching was possible with a little nimble footwork. There was a dominant move to push e-assessment to a richer interaction beyond multiple choice questions with approaches such as natural language processing of freeform responses, customised virtual worlds and the computer algebra system (CAS)-based approach of STACK.
These ranged from visually compelling virtual reality training software through the specific issues of handling freeform textual input with NLP technologies approach to checking programming assignments. Companies offering regulatory compliance solutions engaged with regulating bodies. One presentation was given as a live person engaged in a dialog with a pre-recorded colleague. It was an approach I had not seen done successfully but was an illuminating demonstration of the pros and cons…
