EIAT: Enhanced Indirect Assessment Tool for Assessing the Graduate Degree Programme Outcomes

Abstract

In order to achieve excellence, it is important for the educational institutions to assess the outcomes of their graduate programmes. In general, the graduate programme outcomes are assessed through direct (examinations, projects, assignments etc) and indirect (co-curricular, extra-curricular, surveys etc) methods. The results through direct assessment are followed up with several actions such as remedial classes, tutorials etc. Accomplishments in Co-curricular, extra-curricular activities and Feedback surveys from the students, recruiters and alumni are considered for the indirect assessment of Programme outcomes. To improve these indirect assessment methods, some institutions are getting feedback for few activities manually. With the increasing use of ICT in education and mobile learning, we decided to launch a new mobile and web based indirect assessment tool (IAT) for assisting the programme assessment committee in our department. This tool automates the process of recording student's surveys, efficiently analyzes the feedback data from number of perspectives and produces ready-to-use reports which help other wings of the department such as Industry interaction, Research, Student's activities and Faculty development to decide future targets and follow-up actions. This tool contains well structured questionnaires for obtaining feedback of students on the course they learn during mid of a semester and end of a semester. The tool also collects feedback from graduates, alumni and employers to ensure an all-rounded assessment. The proposed Indirect Assessment Tool (IAT) has been implemented using web technologies such as HTML, PHP, JSON and JS. The tool has been tested successfully and is involved in indirect assessments of our degree programme since 2015.