Effectiveness of Online Assessments

Many organizations are adopting online platforms in recent times for their pre employment assessments and internal assessments as well. This area has seen growth due to an increase in the needs of the organizations to either quickly create & deliver pre employment assessments or to create assessments as part of their internal trainings. But an organization should think through clearly the requirements and whether a chosen online assessment platform actually fulfills these requirements and if yes, how effective is the chosen platform / system? The term ‘online assessment’ is interpreted in many ways to mean online exam platform or computer based assessment or online test repository or simply e-assessment. Though there is no definite difference in the final learning outcomes between offline and online assessment systems, the effectiveness lies in the implementation, speed and ease. Obviously, no one system fits the needs of all organizations. 

The features of the online assessment platform and their suitability to the requirements of the organization and the content (question bank and the exams created) define the effectiveness of the system more than anything else. There used to be some areas of evaluation which required human intervention earlier. But with advances in technology, smart applications are able to monitor and evaluate every possible assessment area. Another important factor that determines the effectiveness of the platform is how well does it help in delivering the exam to its end users. When doing pre employment assessments, a major determinant driving the effectiveness would be whether the platform helps in creating the exam, delivering it, and evaluating fast enough to have considerable reduction in the recruitment cycle. When the same platform is being evaluated for internal trainings, a major factor that determines this effectiveness would be whether the assessments could be tied to skills enhancement and their tracking by managers.

Assessment is a cyclic process. The results of each cycle should lead to improvements in the next one. To be effective, organizations should evaluate their current system and agree upon the benefits of implementing online assessment system. Instructional and evaluation quality should be maintained in the online environment.

For a detailed view on how an online assessment platform can help your organization, speak to hubVirt’s experts in the area, by reaching out to us here:

http://www.hubvirt.com/hubvirt/contact.html

To understand how our online assessment platform can help your organization in your pre employment assessments, see vTesting features at:

http://www.hubvirt.com/hubvirt/vtesting.html

To know how our online LMS for Organizations can help in internal trainings and assessments, see vLearningPro features at:

http://www.hubvirt.com/hubvirt/vlearningpro.html

Case Study – vTesting for Shortening Recruitment Cycle

XYZ Technologies Pvt. Ltd. is a technology company which has an employee pool consisting of web developers, UI designers, test engineers and sales personnel. The company hired through job portals, recruitment agencies and the usual channels. The HR team would sift through hundreds of resumes before short listing a handful for processing. The potential candidates would then be put through various stages of selection.

The company was looking to simplify and quicken its hiring process. One of the ways was to conduct a screening test on various technologies for potential employees. The performance in the test would be used as a basis for calling the candidates for an interview. Since, the number of candidates who would be taking the test is in hundreds, it would be an enormous task calling them all to the office and take them through a paper based test and then correcting them manually.

hubVirt provided them their online exam platform named vTesting.

Outcome: The time taken in the entire process (until an offer has been made) reduced by nearly 50% by using vTesting.  It also helped in reducing the effort required by the HR team in pre-screening the candidates and for conducting a test, correcting the answers manually and sorting the scores. The company saw clear gains in using the online platform vTesting in conducting screening test and thus getting a better hold on its recruitment process.

Read more at this link:  vTesting for shortening recruitment cycle

Conducting Examinations Online – The New Alternative

Online examinations are increasingly becoming popular in India. Almost all graduate and post-graduate level exams have gone online or are in the transition period. The limitations of the paper-based tests have left administrators with little choice and the developments in technology have given them an excellent alternative. With information technology becoming an integral part of everyday life, conducting online examinations has become feasible and easy.

The traditional system of conducting exams with a paper and pen has the following disadvantages:

• The process of conducting an exam is time consuming for administrative staff and teaching community.
• It is difficult and time taking to analyze the answers manually (of course the OMR sheet reduces this burden to an extent).
• Scalability is limited when the number of candidates taking an exam increases.
• Results and analysis are not precise.
• There are security issues with papers being delivered to the venues physically.
• Mal-practice is prevalent since there is human intervention at every step.
• Storing historical information is difficult and tedious.

In comparison, the online examination system offers the following benefits:

• It is less time consuming and more efficient.
• Reduced usage of resources.
• Correction and analysis are automated and easier.
• Results can be accessed almost instantaneously.
• Records of previous exams can be stored online and can be retrieved easily.
• It is relatively secure since it reduces human intervention.

Of course, we are assuming that it is feasible and the required infrastructure and support system is present.

vTesting is an online examination and assessment platform used by Institutes and Organizations. If you are interested in conducting an online exam, write to sales@hubvirt.com or visit www.hubvirt.com for more information.