Design Considerations of a Flexible Computer Based Assessment System

Nowadays, the use of computers in the field of education is becoming increasingly widespread. In this study, several Computer Based Assessment (CBA) systems including one of the popular open source software used today was examined and their deficiencies are revealed. Based on these deficiencies, a more complete web-based CBA requirements and features are identified. Based on these requirements/features, in this paper, a new novel design and reference implementation of a CBA software is introduced. The developed system analyzes questions using the item-response theory and while selecting questions based on their difficulty, it also shuffles questions linked group questions (paragraphs, etc.). The system is tested with several courses over many students and its effectiveness is reported in this paper.