Industry
Education
Digitizing education for blended and immersive learning experiences
Highlights
- Digital assessment in the education sector is the first step toward rethinking the function of evaluations.
- New platforms allow teachers to focus on providing creative learning possibilities by reducing the time spent on the manual task of holding in-person assessments.
- Digital evaluation can provide data-based insights to teachers and learners on progress, gaps, and target areas of improvement to help them achieve the best learning outcomes.
In this article
Digital evaluation
Spurred by the rapid digitalisation of the education sector, especially during the pandemic in recent years, educational institutions needed to rethink how they assessed students. Many universities and education bodies quickly moved their physical assessments to digital, thanks to the digital tools and services available.
As part of the transition to a digital assessment system, institutions had to weigh assessment rigour and security against what was feasible and fair. Several universities that already had long-term digital assessment strategies were able to accelerate their digital assessment journeys due to the rapid development of scaled-up technology platforms
Assessment rethink
Digitising assessments is the first step in a new strategy to rethink the function of evaluations. Many of the institutions Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) works with have already begun permanently digitising student assessments as the first step toward making long-term strategic decisions and changes.
Educational institutions can now spend less time preparing for, observing, and monitoring traditional in-person exams because of the flexible alternatives offered by digital assessments. By freeing up time spent on manual duties, many new platforms enable teachers and professors to focus on the difficulties of analysing open-ended responses and creating unique and creative learning possibilities and solutions.
The benefits
Assessments are a crucial part of the education process and can help drive improvement, shape behaviours, and demonstrate accountability. A digital assessment approach better reflects how most students now complete productive work and provides a platform for delivering a boundaryless assessment experience.
With multiple authentication and encryption mechanisms built into the data and content security infrastructure, digital assessment solutions pre-empt any security breach and only allow authorised access.
The educational process must encourage students to develop independent and self-directed learning skills by moving away from scheduled examinations and toward ongoing, personalised evaluations enabled by digital assessment tools. This strategy also opens up the possibility of using analytics, allowing students and professors to analyse their data and gain access to various tools that aid their research, thereby improving the management of the teaching and evaluation process.
Educational institutions can now spend less time preparing for, observing, and monitoring traditional in-person exams because of the flexible alternatives offered by digital assessments.
Looking ahead
With the shift to digital assessment and the broader digital transformation of higher education services, there is an increasing demand for authentic evaluation processes. As a result, it is critical to ensure that digital assessment methods provide an accurate and appropriate alternative to standardised testing, as well as the ability to evaluate and reflect the skills required in the future professional lives of students.
The growing demand for accurate assessment will enable universities to move to the next stage of digital transformation. Digital transformation was initially a practical issue for many educational institutions. However, it quickly became more widespread and comprehensive, radically changing student evaluation and ensuring it reflects real-world skills.
Furthermore, an assessment platform must be open to all. The ability to accommodate the various needs of differently abled students will differentiate good assessments from bad.
Another critical aspect of digital assessment is the data and insights it can provide to teachers and students. Providing specific insights to teachers and learners on progress, gaps, and target areas of improvement can help students and teachers stay on track to achieve the best learning outcomes.
While in-person exams may continue, they are unlikely to be the primary method of evaluation. In the digital age, educational institutions must use digitised learning solutions and platforms to remain competitive, streamline and expand the quality and flexibility of the assessment process, and create sustainable, unbiased, and fair educational solutions.
