Scalable Delivery and Remediation of Engineering Assessments using Computer-Based Assessment

Inspired by the success of Computer-Based Assessment (CBA) prevalent in disciplines outside of Engineering, a large-scale multiple-year project has been undertaken at the University of Central Florida (UCF) to develop authentic CBA assessments. To-date 29 faculty at UCF have converted their assessments for delivery in a vacated computer lab which was repurposed to create an Evaluation and Proficiency Center (EPC), which realizes proctored testing, autograding, and scanning of scratch sheets for formative and summative assessments. The scrap sheets are utilized to self-motivate learners to revisit the EPC to remediate their missed problems with the assistance of the Graduate Teaching Assistant tutors who were freed up via reduction in their grading loads. Meanwhile, the learners build their soft-skills, as well as their confidence, to convey and explain solutions to engineering problems. Using this EPC-based delivery model, the scalability of the assessment infrastructure is measured and evaluated across seven Engineering degree programs and seen to be capable of harvesting over $400,000 of instructional value annually.