TAO (e-Testing platform) explained

TAO
Developer:Open Assessment Technologies S.A.,
LIST (formerly CRP Henri Tudor),
EMACS research unit of the University of Luxembourg
Latest Release Version:3.5.0
Operating System:Cross-platform
Programming Language:PHP
Genre:Course management system
License:GPLv2
Website:taotesting.com

TAO is the French acronym for Testing Assisté par Ordinateur (Computer Based Testing).

The TAO framework provides an open architecture for computer-assisted test development and delivery, with the potential to respond to the whole range of evaluation needs. It provides to all the actors of the entire computer-based assessment process a comprehensive set of functionalities enabling the creation, the management, and the delivery of electronic assessments.The TAO platform is developed by the EMACS research unit of the University of Luxembourg and the SSI department of the Centre de Recherche Public Henri Tudor.

Overview

The TAO framework is an open-source project which provides a very general and open architecture for computer-assisted test development and delivery. The open source project only delivers a limited amount of modules as there is no Results Management. As upcoming evaluation needs will imply the collaboration among a large number of stakeholders situated at different institutional levels and with very different needs for assessment tools, the TAO framework has the ambition to provide a modular and versatile framework for collaborative distributed test development and delivery with the potential to be extended and adapted to virtually every evaluation purpose that could be handled by the means of computer-based assessment.

In order to reach this goal, the testing problem has been broken down into its constitutive parts:

These parts are implemented under the form of multiple specialized modules connected in a peer-to-peer network. As the TAO architecture should fit into many different use cases, there is no central node in the system (the whole network of TAO nodes is an open-system with no global consistency) and it is assumed that there cannot be an a priori model for each data domain that reaches consensus within all the actors. On the contrary, each module owner or user is free to build the model that best corresponds to his own view. In order to support this model diversity, TAO modules are equipped with advanced modelling functionalities allowing users to build dynamically their own model and share data organized according to different models.

Features

General features
Item development and management
Test development and management
Subject management
Group management
Test delivery management
Results management

TAO Architecture

The description of the platform architecture at the current stage is organized on a component basis. A part of these components are independent from the computer-assisted testing domain.

The TAO platform should be considered as a particular instantiation (for a particular purpose) of a more general platform dedicated to the collaborative and distributed management of web resources and of the ontologies describing these resources. The more specific components will be presented afterward. The TAO platform consists in a series of interconnected modules. Each module is a specialization of a more generic kernel application called Generis4.

The specialization consists in adding a specific model to the kernel defining the domain of specialization, several plug-ins providing specific functionalities to the specialization according to the domain and relying on specific properties of the model, possibly some external applications, and a specific (optional) user graphical interface.

TAO Modules

TAO is designed as a modular system. This decentralised structure is necessary on one hand to maintain the anonymity of the Subjects and on the other hand to allow the collaboration among several users, to change items and tests.

The modules may be placed on the same server or on different servers connected through the internet or local area networks.

There is a distinction between the portal of test execution (Delivery Server) and the servers of the different modules, providing the information about Subjects, Groups, Items, Tests, Deliveries and Results.

In the Subject module the testees are recorded and managed. Its flexibility allows the design of datasheets (e.g. name, address, birthday, gender, etc.). The Subjects may be assigned to sets according to the specific assessment context (Human resources management, education, edumetric monitoring, etc.).

The subjects may be subsumed in regard to global features and classifications in the Group module. The main object of this module is to assign the favoured test(s) to the appointed group. The Subjects and Tests that belong to one group may be originated from different modules on different servers. This module establishes the basis to run a test.

The Item module enables the creation and design of items, exercises. Different kinds of templates are provided to the item authors like Multiple Choice Question, puzzle design, Fill-in-the-gap, etc. Any other demands may be added within the scope of further development.

A selection of favourite Items – originated from different modules on different servers - is combined to a test in the Test module. Furthermore, the test mode (sequencing, scoring, cumulating, etc.) and layout is configured here.

In the Delivery module the test administrator will be able to define test campaigns, constraints on test execution (Test may be made available during a given period, Tests may be assigned with a maximum number of executions). This module will also enable to select on which Result module all results should be sent to.

The Test Delivery Server provides the compiled tests via URL. The Subjects will access their assigned Test(s) through their logins and passwords.Finally all the results of passed tests with referring Subject, Group, Item and Test specific data as well as the individual data collected during test execution are stored and managed in the Result module. Currently there is no real Results module available (if you expect to see more than a list of a number of students tests with links).

Item templates

Tests or surveys consist of items (exercises, questions) that may have different characteristics. These characteristics are defined by Item Templates. They describe the way an item is presented.

On the basis of a certain template an item is filled with text and/or multimedia elements, the Item Content. This process is called item authoring.

The main constituents of a particular item are its underlying Item Template and its specific Item Content.

TAO provides the following Item templates (types of items):

Publications

Licence

The TAO platform is released under the GPLv2 licence.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "TAO (e-Testing platform)".

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