Internetbased Assessment EU Minerva Programme 91894-CP-1-2001-SE-MINERVA -M Website: http://www.onlineassessment.nu Background paper for workshop on On-line assessment for the European Distance Education Network (EDEN) Conference, Budapest 16-19 June, 2004 (version of 22 June 2004) Assessment for Learning: What have we learned from our Minerva Project? Barbara Crossouard, David Hamilton, Ulf Jonsson, John Pryor, Bertil Roos, Anders Steinwall, Hans Sundström, Steven van Tittelboom Harry Torrance Contact: david.hamilton@pedag.umu.se Note to Reader: This paper has been written as a series of propositions. It serves as a background paper. The workshop also includes presentations from the partners. Background 1. Internetbased Assessment (IBA) has been a three-year project (2002-4) within the Minerva Programme of the European Commission. The project has been co-ordinated from Umeå University (Sweden), with development partners in England and Belgium (Sussex and Ghent universities, respectively) and a commercial partner, Orantic, the Swedish distributor of Questionmark software. 2. The project built on two innovations: (1) the development of software that can be used in test construction; and (2) developments in the field of testing and examinations that, in short, are described as 'alternative assessment'. 3. Alternative assessment is devoted towards support for learning rather than the measurement of learning. 4. It is characterized as an alternative to standardized, norm-referenced, multiple-choice testing. 5. It typically claims the following features: ? Student involvement in setting goals and criteria for assessment ? Use of higher level thinking and/or problem solving skills ? Contextualisation in real world applications ? Use of specified criteria, known in advance, which define standards for good performance. (adapted from McLellan, 2004, p. 312) 6. Our project has been a response to the Minerva rationale of linking on-line education (ICT) with open and distance learning (ODL). 7. We received funds to develop a dimension of on-line and distance education - assessment - that has received relatively little attention.