Toward Developing a Syllabus-Oriented Computer-Based Question-Banks Software to Support Partially Computerized Exams  

作　　者：Sulieman Bani-Ahmad 

机构地区：[1]Department of Computer Information Systems, Faculty of Information Technology, Al-Balqa Applied University, Salt, Jordan

出　　处：《Journal of Software Engineering and Applications》2015年第5期252-268,共17页软件工程与应用（英文）

摘　　要：Aims: This study aims at designing and implementing syllabus-oriented question-bank system that is capable of producing paper-based exams with multiple forms along with answer keys. The developed software tool is named Χ(Chi)-Pro Milestone and supports four types of questions, namely: Multiple-choice, True/False, Short-Answer and Free-Response Essay questions. The study is motivated by the fact that student number in schools and universities is continuously growing at high, non-linear, and uncontrolled rates. This growth, however, is not accompanied by an equivalent growth of educational resources (mainly: instructors, classrooms, and labs). A direct result of this situation is having relatively large number of students in each classroom. It is observed that providing and using online-examining systems could be intractable and expensive. As an alternative, paper-based exams can be used. One main issue is that manually produced paper-based exams are of low quality because of some human factors such as instability and relatively narrow range of topics [1]. Further, it is observed that instructors usually need to spend a lot of time and energy in composing paper-based exams with multiple forms. Therefore, the use of computers for automatic production of paper-based exams from question banks is becoming more and more important. Methodology: The design and evaluation of X-Pro Milestone are done by considering a basic set of design principles that are based on a list of identified Functional and Non-Functional Requirements. Deriving those requirements is made possible by developing X-Pro Milestone using the Iterative and Incremental model from software engineering domain. Results: We demonstrate that X-Pro Milestone has a number of excellent characteristics compared to the exam-preparation and question banks tools available in market. Some of these characteristics are: ease of use and operation, user-friendly interface and good usability, high security and protection of the question bank-items, high stability, and relAims: This study aims at designing and implementing syllabus-oriented question-bank system that is capable of producing paper-based exams with multiple forms along with answer keys. The developed software tool is named Χ(Chi)-Pro Milestone and supports four types of questions, namely: Multiple-choice, True/False, Short-Answer and Free-Response Essay questions. The study is motivated by the fact that student number in schools and universities is continuously growing at high, non-linear, and uncontrolled rates. This growth, however, is not accompanied by an equivalent growth of educational resources (mainly: instructors, classrooms, and labs). A direct result of this situation is having relatively large number of students in each classroom. It is observed that providing and using online-examining systems could be intractable and expensive. As an alternative, paper-based exams can be used. One main issue is that manually produced paper-based exams are of low quality because of some human factors such as instability and relatively narrow range of topics [1]. Further, it is observed that instructors usually need to spend a lot of time and energy in composing paper-based exams with multiple forms. Therefore, the use of computers for automatic production of paper-based exams from question banks is becoming more and more important. Methodology: The design and evaluation of X-Pro Milestone are done by considering a basic set of design principles that are based on a list of identified Functional and Non-Functional Requirements. Deriving those requirements is made possible by developing X-Pro Milestone using the Iterative and Incremental model from software engineering domain. Results: We demonstrate that X-Pro Milestone has a number of excellent characteristics compared to the exam-preparation and question banks tools available in market. Some of these characteristics are: ease of use and operation, user-friendly interface and good usability, high security and protection of the question bank-items, high stability, and rel

关 键 词：Exam Preparation Tools Syllabus-Oriented QUESTION Banks PARTIALLY COMPUTERIZED Exams Iterative and Incremental SOFTWARE Development Model X-Pro Milestone 

分 类 号：R73[医药卫生—肿瘤]