Online Competence Assessment in Microsoft Word with Automatic Feedback

Abstract

Assessing competency of a software application has to be practical based unlike conducting a theoretical type assessment to ensure learners have captured required skills in certification programs. Also, an automated evaluation process for such practical examinations would bring lots of advantages like immediate feedback, resource benefits, consistency and would allow institutes to operate in mass-scale addressing larger audience. “Online Competence Assessment in Microsoft Word with Automatic Feedback”, is an e-assessment tool which could be used by many institutes that conduct preliminary courses such as MS Word for beginners in which, measuring the capability of using such a tool being the primary objective of the course. It will be an appropriate substitution for the conventional take-home assignment that should be uploaded or few multiple choice questions since none of those techniques could exactly measure hands on experience of MS Word. Even though there are various tools suggested for practical assessments using simulations, that idea also would not be a cost effective solution due to the resource requirements. On the contrary, the assessment tool suggested in this thesis is a cost effective solution which could be used to evaluate students. It would mostly be concerned about formatting functionalities and other primitive utilities of MS Word. At this level, it would not be evaluating advanced MS Word features like using templates or mail merge. Examiners (teachers) would be facilitated with a question creating framework which aid in creating questions and then allocate marks for concerned MS Word features. Students will have a separate application to access the question and attempt it in MS Word environment. At the completion of the task, the tool would provide the marks by comparing the documents and also generate a feedback report about student’s performance. Using XML files and a special set of classes, the tool would interpret the documents and do the comparison. The e-assessment tool proposed in this thesis is designed in a very user-friendly manner and it is extensible for future improvements. The implemented prototype was given for a set of users both students and teachers as a pilot study and results obtained are further discussed in the document.