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Mombasa’s Aga Khan Academy rolls ‘e-Assessment’ platform to guarantee exam security
Aga Khan Academy Mombasa has adopted a computerized electronic examination assessment platform dubbed ‘e-Assessment’ that has transformed the sitting and…
Aga Khan Academy Mombasa has adopted a computerized electronic examination assessment platform dubbed ‘e-Assessment’ that has transformed the sitting and evaluation of the school’s exams, eliminating courier costs for exam papers, as well as leakages and losses in transit.
The e-Assessment on-screen platform software is installed into computers by the Middle Years Program (MYP) Coordinator, who accesses it immediately prior to the exam starting time and instructs the local system to notify the IB server that the platform is now online and ready for the impending exam.
“The need to ensure complete security for exam papers by eliminating any bias in marking answers is paramount in a healthy and thriving education system,” said Bill O’Hearn, Head of AKA Mombasa. “With this new system, we have achieved a guarantee of these basics, in a deployment of new technology that can, in time, render to history the problems associated with printing and distributing hard copy exam papers.”
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Students are registered beforehand and given login details which are used to access the exam, during the course of which no other activity can be carried out on the screen, allowing students to focus only on the test.
“The platform has greatly enhanced efficiency and credibility, since the exam is downloaded safely from a secure site. The timing of the exam duration is automated and on completion, the student responses are automatically scrambled and uploaded back to the IB site,” said Ms Nondi.
The scrambling of the data ensures there are no cases of hacking the exams, or answers, since they are encrypted and cannot be read or reproduced without being unencrypted.
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“Once open, the system cannot be closed or minimized. The e-Assessment has a window period of being live for, at most, 5 hours, after which it becomes inaccessible. At the end of each paper, the software scrambles each student’s response file and begins automatic upload to the IB secure site,” said Ms Nondi.
Mr Monari said the incorporation of the e-Assessment platform has been revolutionary for the students and the teachers, since the IB organization marks the exams solely through this system.