Profile

Basehor-Linwood USD #458 is a combined district that serves the communities of Basehor and Linwood as well as an extensive rural population from the surrounding areas. The district consists of two elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school. The schools are dedicated to creating and developing alternative approaches to delivering educational processes through the use of current and emerging technologies. They, therefore, selected AllofE to develop a state-of-the-art, online testing system. The system would provide them with a tool to create and track web-based learning and testing. Students, faculty, and staff would have access to the system from anywhere and at anytime, allowing them to setup and take tests, provide automatic grading, and monitor results.

Challenge

• Develop a system to easily create web based tests without any technical knowledge and experience.
• Provide an online application that allows for anytime-anywhere access for test creating, taking, and grading.
• Ensure the site is easy to use so that tests can be taken with absolutely no computer knowledge.
• Develop tests in the format most conducive for easy comprehension and usability.
• Provide a testing queue for each test taker displaying all tests that need to be taken when the user logs in.
• Build an interface for instructors to assign users to testing groups.
• Allow instructors to define date ranges that each test is available, the number of times it can be taken, and a minimum percentage that must be achieved to pass.
• Create a reporting module to generate result summaries, student reports, and exportable documents based on each test, student, and class.
• Allow for the results to be exported directly to spreadsheet format.
• Track exactly which tests the students have taken and which questions were answered correctly.
• Incorporate question validation into the tests so that test can have questions that are required or have formatting validation as numerical, date, email, etc.
• Create test questions in multiple formats: lists, dropdowns, open-ended questions, and more.
• Assign points to each answer within a question allowing for partial and full credit answers.
• Allow test creators to define whether the student can retake the test and whether they only have to retake the questions they answered incorrectly.
• Create question banks to quickly pull questions and answers for tests based on school, grade level, subject, etc.
• Provide automatic grading with the ability to manually grade any question, redistribute points, or change existing grades.
• Automatically calculate percentages based upon number of points achieved and number of points possible.
• Build a security structure with user id and password authentication.
• Display test results after each test with links to reference documentation on each question.

Response

AllofE designed a scalable, web based testing system that would allow any user, regardless of technical knowledge, to create and manage tests. From multiple question formats to question banks and automatic grading, programmers developed a system that could manage tests for multiple schools, teachers, grades, and classes with advanced search and filtering capabilities to quickly locate a test.

Developers implemented a system security structure that assigned functionality to users based on their user level as well as assigned tests to specific users. This provided administrative users the ability to only give access to updating each test to the assigned teacher and/or supervisor.

Implementation managers then imported into the system the district’s classes, teachers, and existing tests. The implementation was setup on Basehor-Linwood’s server for beta testing. Once the administrative and teacher beta test group had submitted and approved all enhancements, the system went live to manage Basehor-Linwood’s virtual school processes.

Effects

With the new online testing system, Basehor-Linwood School District will be able to quickly and easily generate web based tests in multiple formats without any previous computer knowledge. Students will be able to log on with their own ID and password and see the tests they need to take, re-take and view grades of previous exams. The system will automatically grade each test and allow teachers to later modify grades and manually grade essay and short answer questions. ExamN provides Basehor-Linwood with an online testing program that completely transforms their virtual school testing processes.