JISC

This project has now completed. See the project website and the final report available at the foot of this page.

One potential application of item banks is to use them to create entire assessments (i.e. structured sets of related items). This would allow teachers to select from large numbers of questions - particularly if two or more item banks are available.

The CATS project is creating a toolkit to support automated assessment construction.  It will build upon the outputs of two previous ELF projects – SPAID (Storage and Packaging of Assessment Item Data) and Discovery Plus (D+ - Brokerage for Deep and Distributed e-Learning Resources Discovery).

Aims and Objectives

The overall aim of the project is to create a toolkit of loosely-coupled web services which support the various tasks inherent to automated assessment construction e.g. searching for, retrieving and aggregating assessment items held in multiple item banks. 

The specific objectives are to:

• Analyse and scope the functional requirements of the system
• Design and implement the component web services, and their interactions
• Create a simple prototype application to demonstrate the system functionality
• Consult with domain practitioners (see below)

Project Methodology

• The D+ system will be enhanced to search for and download assessment items held within specific item banks (it currently interfaces to digital repositories only) 
• In the first instance the SPAID system will be used to create and maintain test item bank instances, which will be cross-searched by the CATS system.  Additional item bank systems will be added as the project progresses
• The CATS project will use the same agile software development approach used within the SPAID project i.e. an initial JAD (Joint Application Development) workshop, followed by a series of time-boxed development periods called “sprints”

Implications/ Deliverables/ Stakeholders

The outputs of the project will be disseminated to users via the CETIS Assessment SIG (Special Interest Group). In addition, the project will undertake a consultation exercise with several domain practitioners involved in creating assessments from item banks.  This task will give an overview of current practice, as well as indicating future functionality which CATS could support.

Project Partners
Morag Watson
The University of Edinburgh
Telephone +44 (0)131 650 3395
Email   morag.watson@ed.ac.uk

Robin Taylor
The University of Edinburgh
Telephone +44 (0)131 651 3811
Email   robin.taylor@ed.ac.uk