Evaluation of online assessment: the role of feedback in learner-centered e-learning

Advancement of the information and communication technologies enables the integration of technology with daily activities and education is not an exception. E-learning, which applies the concept of open and distance learning is learning through the Internet. It had been reviewed as an efficient knowledge transfer mechanism. E-learning is seen as a future application worldwide, promoting life long learning by enabling learners to learn anytime, anywhere and at the learner's pace. This paper presents the evaluation of an online test based on a case study of an e-commerce course offered by the Computation Department, University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST). The main aim of the online test is to provide 'rich' feedback to students, which is one of the requirements of the learner-centered learning paradigm. The online test, in the form of multiple choice questions, provides feedback through automatic grading, providing correct answers and referring the students to the learning content which explains the correct answers. Evaluation of the online test was based on two criteria: functionality and usability. In terms of functionality, evaluation was meant to get the students' view of the feedback provided by the system, while in terms of usability, the evaluation sought to ensure that the system not only functions as expected by the users but is also usable. Results show that the online test is suitable for online-learning and provides rich feedback.