In seeking to solve the challenges of traditional assessment methods for large classes, Strathmore University’s Delphine Mukandutiye, explored a research in the use of e-assessment which guarantees to reduce lecturers’ burden in terms of marking assessments and giving feedback to students, reduce costs incurred by the University in terms of managing CATs and offer a richer experience to students who are familiar with e-Learning for consumption of learning materials.

 

In her research findings, she discovered that e-assessment was better than traditional assessment; students performed better and they were happy with instant feedback, lecturers spent more time setting up CATs but enjoyed the automated marking, easier analysis of the results and faster generation of necessary reports. By adoption of such a system, the University could save a considerable amount of money by implementing e-assessment. The success of this research resulted in the establishment of an eLearning Support Centre that was established to spearhead e-assessment, e-feedback and mobile learning in Strathmore University.

 

For this research paper, Delphine has subsequently been awarded a grant by Kenya Education Network (KENET) to enable her present a paper at the IST Africa 2014 Conference that will be held in Mauritius, from 6^th to 9^th May, 2014. Delphine’s paper entitled “E-assessment Implementation in Strathmore University” will be presented in the Technology Enhanced Learning session. The IST Conference provides a platform to strengthen Information Society, ICT and Innovation related policy dialogues within Africa and between Africa and Europe.

 

Delphine Bheny Mukandutiye is a Research Assistant at @iLabAfrica. Her research was part of her Master’s thesis under the supervision of Dr. Joseph Sevilla, a Senior Lecturer and Director of @iLabAfrica. @ILabAfrica is a research and innovations lab in Strathmore’s Faculty of Information & Technology.