A digital assessment tool is an indispensable addition for organisations that focus on testing knowledge, skills and competences within their development and training processes. An assessment tool supports the complete testing process from development, planning and administration to correction and analysis. Moreover, the tool reduces fraud, increases workflow efficiency, is fully scalable and safeguards and improves the quality of tests and the value of certificates and diplomas. Rowan van Swieten, senior consultant business development at Optimum Assessment, explains why a digital assessment tool is a must. "When it comes to assessment, especially summative assessment - where a diploma or certificate is at stake - you want to use a platform that provides candidates with an optimal assessment experience," says Rowan. "Learning management systems (LMS) or other E-learning platforms are essentially not designed for this. With these platforms, the focus is on providing and transferring knowledge and tracking training progress, with a lot of formative testing in particular. If you want to test at a high level, a digital assessment tool offers full support, because the platform is specifically designed to strengthen the testing process." Higher quality A digital assessment tool provides certifying bodies with more information on the quality of the test, the associated content such as questions and answer options and its difficulty level. Certifying bodies can carry out psychometric analyses based on the results after each test. This way, it can be determined whether the test meets all criteria in terms of validity, reliability, specificity, difficulty, discriminatory ability, transparency, (linguistic) technical quality and test quality. On the basis of this data, a test can be adapted to better fit the teaching material. Countering fraud It is not just the quality of a test that is essential for certifying bodies and training providers. Integrity is at least as important. After all, a certificate or diploma has as much value as the credibility of the trainer or course, and thus directly affects the candidate's career. What negative consequences fraud can have proved the past. The (in)direct manipulation of test results dented the image of several organisations and, in one fell swoop, diplomas and certificates were worth nothing on the labour market. A digital assessment tool significantly reduces the risk of fraud through various applications throughout the assessment process, from creation to supervision. Rowan: "With a digital assessment tool, you can easily create different variants of a test. Different aspects of the test such as the questions, answer variants or the order of questions and answers then differ per student, per group or per period. An assessment tool even offers the possibility of generating a unique test for each candidate. Because of the exclusivity of the test content, sharing test questions and corresponding answers makes no sense if others get very different questions." Fraud is also limited during test-taking by real-time physical and digital monitoring or a combination of these, where the test session can be recorded and viewed afterwards. Furthermore, restrictions can also be imposed by using lockdown browsers, for example. Rowan: "By combining different applications, we virtually eliminate question leakage and thus prevent fraud." Adnan Maakoul (left) & Rowan van Swieten (right) at Optimum Assessment. Efficient and secure workflow A digital assessment tool also helps organisations organise work processes more efficiently. Rowan: "Several people, inside or outside an organisation, can work on the same test or different tests simultaneously in the same platform. This makes action lists in different places or endless e-mail exchanges a thing of the past. In an assessment tool, everyone's workload is clearly visible, on the basis of which you can then steer and plan. In addition, you can determine per user who has access to which part of the platform based on an extensive role and rights structure. This allows users to focus on what they need to find or do, such as creating or checking questions. Because the entire process takes place in one closed environment, you not only work more efficiently but certainly also more securely." Pure picture of knowledge level of candidate Digital assessment tools enable adaptive testing. In doing so, the system adapts itself to the candidate's knowledge level. Rowan: "Suppose a candidate answers a number of questions of a certain knowledge level well, then the system automatically offers questions of a higher level. In this way, the test platform determines the candidate's knowledge level during the test. As a result, the test better matches the level and your training body has a clean picture of a candidate's knowledge." Flexibility through combination of paper and digital Besides the possibility of digital testing, , a digital assessment tool also offers the possibility of taking tests on paper. Rowan explains: "The recording, creation, review and analysis is digital, only the taking takes place on paper. Organisations that wish to do so can print the test. The completed exams can then be scanned, after which the review can be continued digitally, just like the rest of the testing process. This offers flexibility for organisations and candidates". Approachable and equal testing A digital assessment tool also has clear added value for those taking the test. A digital test is generally user-friendly and low-threshold, allowing the candidate to focus only on the test. Here, a test should take place under the same conditions for everyone as much as possible. For this purpose, a digital assessment tool offers possibilities to support candidates with audiovisual limitations. Examples include text-to-speech options, changing the font size and colour reproduction. Essential complement to LMS A digital assessment tool is an essential complement to an existing LMS for improving the learning and development process. It provides specialised features that improve test quality, prevent fraud and enable adaptive testing. Rowan: "Ensuring test quality ensures that the value of certificates, diplomas, and therefore the certifying authority, is maintained. Those who want to keep testing in their organisation continuously up-to-date and secure cannot ignore a digital assessment tool."
