Abstract: This article addresses the possibilities of supporting formative assessment with eLearning tools. The context between formative assessment, summative assessment and tools in current eLearning environments is established before concepts for an onscreen marking tool, called MarkTool, in support of formative assessment are developed. The consultation process regarding onscreen marking and the resulting requirements for the MarkTool are described. This is followed by a report on first experience with using onscreen marking. The article then explores issues that need to be addressed for the wider application of onscreen marking. Finally, extensions to onscreen marking developing electronic repositories of marked student work are introduced that have the potential to positively impact on student learning and on the quality of marking feedback. 1

The educational literature shows that formative assessment is highly conducive to learning. The tasks given to students in formative assessment generally require open-ended responses that can be given, for example, in essay-type format and that are assessed by a human marker. An essential component is the formative feedback provided by the marker that needs to assist the student in recognising knowledge gaps and in formulating steps to close these gaps. The concepts of ‘electronic repositories of marked student work’ introduced in this article suggests an approach to support learning from formative assessment. At the core of this concept lies the realisation that the artefacts submitted by students and assessed by markers are a valuable resource. This resource should not just be used by the submitting students but should be made accessible to future students studying the same concepts. These students can learn from the artefacts and the formative feedback attached to these artefacts. Self- and peer-assessment, important concepts closely linked to formative assessment, can be integrated with the repositories to develop the students ’ subject knowledge, to enhance their critical thinking skills and to familiarise them with assessment procedures. This article develops the concepts of electronic repositories of marked student work. Special emphasis is put on reviewing the educational literature on formative assessment and on binding the concepts introduced into the literature findings.

In this paper, we describe an environment developed to support a rich learning experience in which practice and theory in relational databases are better integrated, enabling students from various backgrounds to appreciate the significance of relational theory and the logical flaws in SQL. Our lightweight open source software includes the aspects of a commercial database system that are most relevant to teaching relational databases and can be run on several platforms.

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Abstract: Considering didactics, assessment is necessary to evaluate the learning process and, thus, also of relevance for the e-learning situation. In fact, it is harder and more problematic to realise them within online courses. This paper examines important didactical aspects, such as defining competencies, determining learning objectives and assessing learners ’ achievements within the scope of e-learning, and, furthermore, it reports about a case study comparing three different assessment methods to each other. In particular, the depicted methods are evaluated in terms of the most relevant factors of the teaching process within the area of adult education. 1

Introduction Design of Information Structures (CS126) is a core module for first year Computer Scientists, Computer Systems Engineers, Computer and Business Studies students and Computer and Management Science students, and is optionally available to students on other degree programmes. It aims to introduce learners to some of the fundamental "building blocks" in Computer Science -- the abstract data types of lists, stacks, queues and so on. The programming language used for the more practical aspects of the module is Java, so the module has the secondary aim of helping learner's advance in their expertise with this language (which a large proportion of learners will have studied for one term only so far). The module is currently taught using a combination of lectures, practical coursework assignments, an examination and laboratory sessions. 2 Each student on the module sh

As student numbers and lecturer workloads increase, traditional methods of assessment make it progressively more difficult to conduct effective assessment and provide students with detailed, specific feedback. Therefore, academic institutions are considering ways of automating their assessment methods, at least in part. This automation is realised by computer assisted assessment (CAA) software. Though CAA software has been proven in some limited situations, it remains a technology which is yet to come of age pedagogically. In this report we discuss the issues of incorporating computer-assisted assessment into university-level teaching, in particular in Computer Science, and give an overview of the software available and its capabilities.

this paper, we discuss an initiative under way at Warwick to provide a technical foundation on which CAA tools may be written which allow a rich dialogue which is sensitive to individual students' response patterns. We use XML to enable the storage of data which can be used by CAA/CAL tools, which distinguishes between dialogues for individual problems, and the linking together of problems. This enables a subject specialist to craft individual questions and units of learning material, whilst allowing the order of presentation of the units to depend on a student's interaction history