Scoping e-assessment tools for engineering

Context and Background
Within the engineering faculty at Monash University, there has been a movement over the last few years to implement a more digital approach towards the assessments within each unit as digital learning systems offer greater flexibility and allow “learners and teachers to extend beyond the traditional schoolrooms” (Sarrab, 2013). This can be seen through increased development and use of Learning Management Systems (LMS) which has been driven by blended-learning and active-learning approaches. Despite this, the majority of final examinations are delivered using paper-based approaches, which often consist of question
and answer booklets.
This traditional system can be an effective method of assessing student knowledge of coursework, however, its effectiveness does not scale with increasing student enrolments in higher education. The number of students enrolled at Monash University has increased from 57,067 students in 2015 to 66,626 in 2017 (Monash University Annual Report 2017, 2018). As of 2019, there are 7,577 enrolled in the engineering discipline (Monash University, 2019). The paper-based exams require large volumes of paper to be printed, great amounts of time and tutor efforts to scan, send and mark the papers, as well as sufficient capacity to store the papers in a secure location (Appiah and van Tonder, 2018). Along with the increasing resources required to implement a paper-based exam, some engineering units cannot offer an authentic reflection of the in-semester content that is strongly dependent on engineering specific software. This limits the ability of a paper-based exam to effectively assess students’ knowledge and learning outcomes.