Without minimizing the importance of practical experience and portfolios, one can state that certifications awarded by well-known professional associations are a proof of professionalcompetences. E-assessment applications are useful tools in the preparation processes for obtaining such certifications. In the field of project management, the Swiss branch of International Project Management Association (IPMA) offers an e-assessment tool, useful to the individuals who are eager to get certified: “X-AM” (http://www.sts.ch/index.php? option= com_content&task=view&id=21&Itemid=42). The users can also see, in addition to navigation buttons and time limits, a navigation table, in the left side of the screen: see Figure 8.1. The table groups the questions in four categories: the current question, the questions which didn’t receive any answers yet, the questions which were answered and the so-called marked questions (to which the user may want to return, as she/he is not sure of the validity of the given answer). Thus, “X-AM” becomes a flexible application, oriented towards the users’ needs.
Another useful e-assessment application for project management is the one offered byQueendom (http://www.queendom.com/tests/access_page/index.htm?idRegTest=1130): the application is useful in professional trainings, as it determines the user’s profile: whether the user has a suited behavior for projects-based work. The Queendom e-tests resemble to quizzes (see Figure 8.2 ): they have 196 questions, graded using a five-point Likert scale (from “Strongly disagree” to “Strongly agree”). Actually, the e-tests check the behavior competences from the IPMA Competences Baseline (International Project Management Association, 2006): the leader competences, the management competences, the interaction or decision competences.
Another standardized e-assessment system used in business administration andmanagement domains by over 200 000 students is the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT): see Figure 8.3.
As the preparation for a professional certification might be quite time consuming for anindividual engaged in economic activities, the Romanian Association of Project Management offers an e-assessment tool for simulation purposes. This practice complies with the effort of digital economy to raise the accessibility level of information systems: individuals don’t have to go the association’s office and take a simulation test there; they can do that from anywhere, even from their office. The assessment mechanism offered by the Romanian Association of Project Management benefits from a web service to interrogate the questions‘ database. The algorithm of building the simulation tests respects some knowledge constraints, bounded to the certification level and a stop criterion, bounded to the questions number in a test. The e-assessment, “CertExam”, is available at: http://www.pm.org.ro/certexam/ (see Figure 8.4).
For e-assessment to be more efficient in the professional training activities, it has to beenriched with formative attributes. Shavelson identifies the following practices in formative assessment: on-the-fly or spontaneous assessment, planned-for-interaction assessment, embedded assessment (Shavelson, 2006). The challenge is to include these formative assessment techniques into information systems. Black and William (2009) pointed a set of activities to be mandatory in order to build a formative e-assessment system: providing feedback that moves learners forward, clarifying and sharing learning intentions and criteria for success, activating students as owners of their own learning or as instructional resources for one another (Black & William, 2009). Wang (2008) completes the list by adding the possibility of repeating the test (correct answers are not immediately given, so that the test can be repeated till all the answers are correct), the possibility of seeing query scores (users are given other users’ scores, so that they can compare themselves), applying “all pass and then reward” strategy.
The primary challenge in building a formative assessment application is to really find out what students know, to detect cognitive models used by the students during the representation of the test concepts and apply those models to build computer adaptive tests. Assessment applications have to be tailored not only for students but for teachers and trainers, who use them to create test: each has different priorities, different constraints and different capacity to compromise (for example, some teachers will prefer the test construction to be less flexible, but easier to achieve).
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