PASS-IT assessment engine

What is the PASS-IT assessment engine?

The PASS-IT assessment engine is a web based assessment system. Lecturers at Heriot-Watt University have been delivering both formative and summative automatic assessment for many years. For a demonstration of the PASS-IT assessment engine go to http://www.calm.hw.ac.uk/pass-it.html.

What does PASS-IT do?

Unlike many other automatic assessment systems the PASS-IT assessment engine provides testing for a range of questions with answers that require numerical expressions, mathematical formulae or word and phrase matching. In addition, the range of multiple choice and multiple response variants are also possible question types. The PASS-IT assessment engine can be delivered in a number of modes which provide a range of feedback to the users. The PASS-IT assessment engine can also set questions using random parameters. It also has built into its design the idea of optional steps to help alleviate the problem of partial credit.

Where has the PASS-IT assessment engine been used previously?

Earlier incarnations of assessment engines have had extensive use inside Heriot-Watt University for both formative and summative assessment of large groups of science and engineering undergraduates. The PASS-IT assessment engine has a predecessor at the heart of the SCHOLAR programme in which the Higher and Advanced Higher courses in Biology, Chemistry, Computing, Mathematics and Physics have been delivered on-line to all the secondary schools in Scotland through the 32 Scottish Education Authorities.