Advantages of E-Examinations

Electronically-based examinations have – especially where there is a growing exam intake – the following advantages for tutors and students:

• Automatic marking not only saves a significant amount of time for tutors and gives a very rapid result for the examination, but also has a high degree of objectivity.
• In the case of free-text exercises and other open types of question the legibility of the answers makes the non-automatic marking much easier, whilst non-dependence on individual handwriting again increases objectivity.
• Students can amend their answers as often as they like without “leaving tracks” and handing in confusing or barely legible worksheets.
• There are many different types of question available, which can be “enriched” with various media (images, video sequences, audio files, animations) in high quality.
• Allocation to sets of questions (e.g. themed) and automatic item analysis (e.g. difficulty and selectivity) simplify repeated use and quality management of the examination content.
• Combined use of the e-examination system with specialist applications promotes the testing of skills and practical competencies (e.g. for programming tasks or Internet and database research).

Therefore electronically-based examinations contribute both to economising on the realisation of summative examinations and to improving their quality. The interrelationship of the e-examination system with the ILIAS learning management systems also means it is possible to prepare examination content for formative e-assessments. This allows for instance students’ learning and progress on the course to be checked with online exercises and targeted preparation of summative examinations.