Review by: Zellweger, Franziska (2006-01-31)

The authors of this review commissioned by the NESTA Futurelab, three scholars from the schools of education at the University of Durham and Nottingham UK, provide an argument for the central role of E-assessment in shaping educational practice. They outline the challenges and opportunities posed by the changing global world around us, and the potential role of technologies in assessment practices. This review summarises existing research and emergent practice, and provides a blueprint for thinking about the risks and potentials.

The text is structured in four sections. Section 1 emphasises the uncontested centrality of summative and the potential role of formative assessment in education. Section 2 reflects on societal, technological and political influences on education such as technology, globalization, mass education or national curricular reforms that ask for new capabilities of the assessment system.

Most interesting is Section 3 in which the authors present current trends, projects and tools for assessing "current" and "new" educational goals. New potentials lie for example in the development of on-demand testing, adaptive testing, better immediated feedback or cost reduction to name a few.To support current educational goals multiple choice tests are presented as a well-established technology. Furthermore it is suggested to include the technology students use in class also into the assessment situation. The authors also see potential in replacing large paper-based examination systems through electronic formats to allow more flexibility for example in the correction process. For the assessment of new educational goals such as higher-order thinking, social skills or working in groups various projects are presented such as digital portfolios.

In the final Section 4, opportunities and challenges for E-assessment are discussed. Considerable room is provided for the discussion of the assessment of process skills. An interesting proposition is the analogy of open web examinations with open book tests. Furthermore the tracking function of MS-word is highlighted as an tool for supporting reflection and critical skills. Similar, various tools making group work more visible are presented.

As the authors state themselves, "E-assessment is a stimulus for rethinking the whole curriculum" (p. 4). In the end the discussion of E-assessment it is rather about about adjustments of the hidden curriculum set by assessment practices than about the technology itself. However, the reviewer would have expected a more comprehensive and in depth analysis of the topic. For a literature review the number of cited references is weak and due to a strong emphasis on the British system some of the elaborations are of limited relevance for an international audience. Nevertheless, the article provides an interesting and broad entry point for readers who are new to the topic.