Computer-aided Assessment Standardisation for Writing and Oral Presentation Assessments: Design, Development and Implementation

Abstract

Computer-aided assessment (CAA) has been widely applied to summative assessments in English language teaching and learning. However, its usage is limited to computer-marked exercises, e.g. multiple choice questions or short answers. Assessments on essay writing or oral presentation are still lacking without human intervention. In addition, computer-aided tools for assessment benchmarking have been commonly neglected. This should be of concern to IT specialists when facilitating language assessment through technology. An online English language assessment standardisation platform (ELCAS) was introduced to reduce discrepancies among raters. The platform was further developed, and adopted by the English Language Centre, Hong Kong Polytechnic University for several years, and the project team won a Faculty Award in 2009 for its outstanding performance in developing this online assessment benchmarking tool to assist teachers in achieving consistency and inter-rater reliability in grading assessed assignments. The primary contribution of this paper is to share the ideas and design of the platform, experience of its development, and the problems encountered during implementation which are of interest for CAA standardisation.