Framework for integrating outcome-based assessment in online assessment: Research in progress

Abstract

The use of online examination in place of paper-based assessment has attracted a plethora of attention from educators and researchers alike. The reason for this stems from the advantages of online examinations, such as effectiveness, objectiveness, and flexibility. However, creating valid and reliable examinations remains a challenge. Often used as a framework for educational assessments, bloom's taxonomy greatly influences the formulation of course outcomes and examination questions. An ideal examination should consist of set of well-aligned questions that extensively meet all the course outcomes and correspond to the different levels of Bloom's taxonomy. Moodle is a popular widespread open source Learning Management System (LMS) that can be used to create examination questions. However, it is lacking in its reporting mechanisms that enables the classification of various questions based on the course outcomes and Bloom's Taxonomy. The objective of this paper is to propose and describe a framework to integrate outcome-based assessment into LMS. This alignment is significant in order to ensure high quality examination assessment as well as to help teachers develop a balanced examination that encompasses all the course outcomes and different levels of Bloom's taxonomy.