Start date: 1 April 2005
End date: 31 October 2005
Funding programme: e-Learning Frameworks and Tools programme
JISC theme(s): e-Learning
The development, population and operation of assessment item banks are
becoming increasingly important issues for the UK education sector.
Interoperability specifications such as those produced by IMS facilitate
the production of assessment resources in formats which enable sharing and
reuse, yet there is currently little understanding of how this can be done
on the medium or large scale across the assessment community. SPAID
will build on initial work undertaken in this area by the Scottish
Qualifications Authority, who have been building a small item bank based on
the QTI v2.0 specification, converting paper-based mathematics questions to
an electronic format and storing them as individual files. They have
also been creating linked metadata with their own application profile which
has been developed from their needs from the UK LOM Core. Metadata is
currently held separately due to problems with content packaging QTI v2.0
items, in particular the incorporation of usage data files within the
item’s content package. The modular, service-based approach proposed
by the eLearning Framework enables the development of various services,
each of which can support part of the functionality required for item
banking and addressing the complexities of capturing and storing usage
data.
Aims and Objectives
The SPAID project will scope and implement services to enable the packaging
of assessment items for storage in an item bank and the search and
retrieval services necessary for the use of item banks. These services
will facilitate the creation and usability of assessment item banks and the
exchange of assessment resources.
The specific objectives are to:
-
Create a content packaging service for assessment items in line with the
IMS Question and Test Interoperability v2.0 specification, in particular
the QTI v2.0 Integration Guide.
-
Create a customisable metadata tagger to allow packaged resources to be
catalogued according to the user’s preferred Dublin Core metadata
profile.
-
Create a usage data file generator in order to capture detailed and
dynamic usage statistics as defined in the QTI v2.0 Meta-data and
Usage Data document.
-
Construct sample item banks consisting of an XML database for storing
metadata linked to a directory structure containing the items themselves
and their associated resources; usage data will also be factored into
this model.
-
Create a range of item bank web services to facilitate the searching of
assessment item metadata and usage data and enable the storage and
retrieval of assessment items.
-
Scope and report on that part of the assessment domain relevant to item
banking.
Project Methodology
This will be run as an agile development project. Requirements
gathering will be generated by JAD workshops containing the development
team, business staff and external stakeholders. UML will be used to
document the requirements. User groups and business staff will be
part of the development team throughout the project. At the end of
the workshop, the requirements will be estimated and prioritised and broken
down into thirty-day time-boxed stages. At the end of each stage
(which will consist of development and testing) a software build will take
place to allow user acceptance testing to take place, in parallel with the
development of the next time-boxed requirements. The use of RAD
iterative software releases will ensure that the team provide real
deliverables at as early a stage as possible to ensure both efficiency and
quality. Scrum project management techniques will be used.
Implications/ Deliverables/ Stakeholders
The deliverables will be made available to the community through the SPAID
project website and the project’s SourceForge pages. Deliverables
will be released under a liberal open source licence which will allow users
to further develop resources and enhance the services offered by the
project. Outcomes will also be disseminated more broadly to users
through participation in relevant CETIS special interest groups and other
relevant activities, while the needs of stakeholders will be incorporated
at all stages of the design and development process.
Final Report This
project completed in October 2005 and the final report is available
at the bottom of this page
Project Partners
University of Strathclyde
Scottish Qualifications Authority