On-line assessment system

This was a big project during the summer of 2008. I can’t say who the work was for, but I can post about what the system does.

The requirements:

• An online system that can be used by students to take tests
• Tests had to be open for an extended period of time
• Tests (in version 1) had to consist of multiple choice, and numeric input
• Students had be able to login and out and answer questions when and where they wanted during the test period
• Once the test period was over students had to be able to login and get their marks and feedback
• Copies of the test had to be downloadable for emailing to students
• Marks had to be available for input into another system
• All student/system interactions had to be logged and tracked.
• System had to be ‘extensible’, i.e. version 2 can be developed later.

So, the system was written using php for the front end and MySQL for the database. The web interface uses AJAX.

It was decided to use AJAX so that once a student answered a question the result was immediately sent to the database, so if there was a power outage, or the student forgot to save their text results, the answers were still captured. On the whole this has worked well, but some students using ‘older’ browsers from home (you know the sort of browser I mean!) had problems with the use of AJAX. However, as the system as built in error checking (i.e. nightly cross check between the server log for the day and the database state) these problems were dealt with.

There was no easy solution for ‘emailing’ out a copy (a pdf was required) of the results. In the end a compromise was reached when an html ‘dump’ from a test session was generated and this was converted to a pdf file using AppleScript and then the system mailed the results to the students.

The final product worked very well,and the clients were pleased. And this summer I am back to write version 2….