ITS Rector Prof Dr. Ir Mochamad Ashari MEng IPU AEng (left) and ITS Secretary Dr. Umi Laili Yuhana SKom MSc showing the i-Assessment innovative exam application

ITS Campus, ITS News – Assessing how far a student’s ability to understand a learning competency, especially during a pandemic, is a complicated matter. So we need an assessment method that not only displays student scores but can also assess students’ abilities comprehensively. To meet these needs, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) research team created an android-based online exam application called Intelligent Assessment or i-Assessment.

The head of the i-Assessment research team, ITS Secretary Dr. Umi Laili Yuhana SKom MSc, explained that this application was made by his research team consisting of nine people combined from ITS lecturers and students. The nine people made this application to support student learning simultaneously because of the sudden shift in learning patterns. “So that i-Assessment was created to fulfill effective distance education technology facilities,” said the lecturer, who is familiarly called Yuhana.

Yuhana said that i-Assessment is different from traditional exam applications. This application can choose six questions per competency with various intelligent features. This includes the application’s ability to select questions adaptively, map participants’ abilities, and be flexible to multiple test subjects. “With this application, it will be easier for teachers to find what materials are difficult for students,” she added.

The physical form of the i-Assessment tool to print test results (left) and the display of the i-Assessment exam application (right) designed by the ITS research team

More profoundly, the six questions selected for each student will have three difficulty levels: hard, medium, and accessible. In addition, the application can detect the seriousness of the students during the exam. This is possible because the feature can determine whether or not the students’ answers are predictable. “When the exam is over, every answer will be seen, whether the students guessed it or not,” explained the lecturer Department of Informatics Engineering.

Not complicated, according to Yuhana, i-Assessment is very easy to use with an interactive and intuitive User Interface (UI). He explained that the first step that needs to be done is to install the i-Assessment application first. Next, log in to the application with an account that has been previously registered; if not, students can also register on the same page. “When you enter, look for the exam you want to take and click start. However, students are asked to read the exam overview and click start again,” she explained.

Display of participant exam results on the i-Assessment application designed by the ITS research team

It doesn’t stop there. After that, students can choose an answer and confirm it because, in an adaptive assessment, they cannot return to the previous question. After filling in six answers, the system will ask students to fill out the questionnaire and click save. Finally, the student’s grades will immediately appear, and they can keep the test results in the Portable Document Format (PDF) version. They can print them using the physical i-Assessment tool if they want.

Meanwhile, to prepare exam questions, teachers can enter the i-Assessment website application to enter queries. Regarding the problem, Yuhana stated that this application is still developing. “Currently, we are developing big data for a question bank that can store various questions, the number of which can reach millions of questions,” she said.

Some of the advantages of the i-Assessment application compared to traditional exam applications.

Moreover, Yuhana revealed that this application has been practiced in three elementary schools (SD) in Surabaya and has distributed questionnaires and received supportive inputs. “I am very interested if I can use i-Assessment for school exams,” said Veronica Sridarmafti SPd, Principal of Christ Raja Catholic Elementary School in Surabaya.

Finally, Yuhana said that i-Assessment previously held a soft launch on May 20 with ITS Chancellor Prof. Dr. Ir Mochamad Ashari MEng IPU AEng. In the future, Yuhana plans to bring this i-Assessment into adaptive learning. Yuhana also hopes that students can later use this i-Assessment at any level. (ITS Public Relation)

Reporter: Gandhi Kesuma