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Online examinations have gained significant recognition in recent times because of the ongoing COVID crisis. UGC, which is one of the most renowned government exams conducting body in India, has also taken to online examination platform to complete this year’s assessments. With this major shift in the conventional form of conducting exams, educators and learners have become more vigilant and proactive to acquire a basic understanding of online-based tests.
What is online examination platform?
An online examination platform or online examination software lets a test administrator create, conduct, and evaluate tests all on an automated platform. The offline method of conducting tests has always been a problematic task. Some of the drawbacks of offline assessments such as- time taking, expensive, and exhaustive requirement of logistics gets easily eliminated in case of online assessments.
Online examination platform- Areas of application
Assessments are a regular part of many industries out of which some of the major sectors that conduct online assessments are-
Educational Sector
Since ages, the educational sector has been the biggest examination conducting body. Starting from some of the very major exams such as admission tests, yearly tests, government/competitive examinations to miscellaneous tests such as weeklies, formative and quizzes, the educational sector is always conducting exams in one form or another.
With the provision of online assessments, schools, colleges, universities, institutes, and coaching centers have gained a better approach to conduct systematic assessments with ease.
Corporate sector
Corporate sectors are a hub of activities that require precise expertise or upgrade in skills regularly. These day’s online assessments have become a handy tool for the recruiters to get skilled job seekers in the wide market. Pre employability tests, personality tests, and aptitude tests are the leading tests in the recruiting industry right now. Also, post-training tests and promotion tests are common in a corporate setting.
When recruiters conduct online assessments, they get a better reach to candidates from across the globe. It saves a lot of time and money all the while assuring that only job-specific/relevant candidates will land for the final interview.
Government sectors
The recruitment process is also quite common in the government sector for various positions such as in defence. Regular exams are conducted in this sector to fill out different job profiles with candidates that are skillfully ideal for it.
What are the features of Online Examination Platform?
Diverse assessment battery
Assessment battery comes in use when a recruiter has to assess the candidate on varied domains at once. Skillset, personality, aptitude, and abilities are important points to be ticked by a recruiter before deciding to onboard a candidate. An interactive and well-designed assessment battery helps in assessing a candidate at once on all the job-relevant skills and traits without any hassle. These tests can also be job profile-specific such as an exclusive test for coding or sales profile can be created.
Customization
Every recruiter, instructor, or an educator has got personalized demands from an online assessment platform. Hence, best online exam software must be consisting of customizable features that can fit into every user’s exclusive requirements. Some of the main customizable features are interface themes, choice of questions, text font, test templates, etc.
Online Proctoring
In the case of online assessments, online proctoring is a mandatory part that is responsible to maintain the credibility of the online tests. The cheat-proof environment is crucial for any administrator when it comes to conducting an online test; hence an online test platform integrated with the proctoring feature is a must.
The proctoring system is backed with AI features and is efficient in detecting any sort of malpractice with its real-time monitoring.
Variety of test questions
An assessment becomes credible and efficient only when it has got competency questions included in it. To get proper insight in a candidate’s skill or knowledge the administrator should use different types of questions in the test such as:
- – Multiple choice
- – Multiple responses
- – True-false
- – Fill in the blanks
- – Match following
- – Match matrix
- – Single-digit
- – Subjective
- – Essay
Comprehensive test reports
A detailed analysis of a candidate’s performance is only possible when the administrator is provided with a comprehensive report which is automatically generated by the software. The reports usually consist of detailed score interpretation on every subject, section, and questions of a test. Also, the score representation is in a graphical and statistical format which is easy to refer for a student.
What are the functionalities of Online Examination Platform?
Creation of test
The first functionality is to create a test that involves the selection and classification of subject/test relevant questions. For any test to be accurate, the selection of questions plays an integral part. The test creator has got two choices; he/she can either add new questions in the online test or can pick up from the existing ones in the library.
Designing of test
The next functionality is to design a test and give it its representable look. The designing part includes giving the test a proper template and assigning any instructions or timings to it. If you are choosing the best online exam software then it comes integrated with different test templates which can even be customized. In the designing part, one can also add tools such as a timer or a calculator.
Publishing or conducting of test
To conduct an online assessment the administrator gets the benefit of classifying the test takers within specific groups. This feature is also beneficial when it is time to assign the candidates with the online test. The administrator can either send the link of the test through an email or can even post it in that specific group on which the test has to be conducted. This way it is possible to create and conduct different tests at a time without any confusion or hassle.
Evaluation and report generation
Online assessment software is an AI integrated efficient tool that is capable of evaluating the test automatically based on the scores allotted to every question and section by the test creator. The evaluation part is efficient and can be done instantly. Once the evaluation is over a comprehensive test report is generated which can be instantly shared with the test takers through email or SMS.
The test reports generated comprise of various parts that give insight to the scoring of the overall test. The test report highlights the scores obtained on every subject, section, questions, and even competitive scores. Also, the visualization of scores can be obtained that are represented in a graphical and statistical format.
What are the Pros and Cons of Online examination Platform?
Pros-
- – Better scalability that makes an instructor or recruiter outreach to candidates across the globe from a remote location.
- – No requirement of expensive logistics which saves a lot of money in both corporate as well as the educational sector.
- – Saves a lot of time as well! Recruiters don’t have to go through a long interview process, in the end realizing that the candidate was not of worth. Just a pre-employability test is enough to classify the right candidates from the irrelevant ones.
- – Test takers can manage to attempt test even with a busy schedule as they don’t have to travel to a specific destination.
Cons-
- – Dependency on technology is too much so the backward areas or the areas that lack development in technology might get affected.
- – A good internet connection is a mandatory requirement so candidates/students residing in rural areas cannot be invited for an online test.
