Skip to main content

Open Computer-based Assessment with the CBA ItemBuilder

Closing Chapter

Without a doubt, the possibilities and options of computer-based assessment have not yet been exhausted. Further research and the development of future software tools are necessary to collect diagnostic information efficiently that allows deriving inference with valid interpretations. Even though there are still many ideas and reasons to further develop in particular the CBA ItemBuilder, we provide this tool as it is to support Open Science (Stodden, Leisch, and Peng 2014) and to support Reproducible Research (Gandrud 2020; Christensen, Freese, and Miguel 2019) in the area of computer-based assessment.

  • Why Open Science? The development of assessment instruments, psychometric tests, and questionnaires in a research context is often publicly funded. Making these instruments available for later use contributes to an Open Science understanding.

  • Why Reproducible Research? The comparability of assessments (i.e., mode effects) is influenced by a large number of small Properties of Measurement (see section 2.2.1). To increase the reproducibility of findings, insight and exchange about the computer-based measurement instruments are necessary, which might be fostered by sharing or providing restricted access to CBA ItemBuilder items.

Interactive learning content and related assessment items created in CBA ItemBuilder can also be shared in terms of Open Educational Resources (OER, see section 8.7.4).

How to Share?

Sharing CBA ItemBuilder items is easy. Define the metadata (see section 6.3.4) within the CBA ItemBuilder project files to inform about the author, the license, and the possibilities to use your content and upload the CBA ItemBuilder item to a repository (e.g., osf or GitHub). If you choose GitHub, you might create a new repository using the template provided as fastib2pci (see section 7.4). Using this template will not only automatically provide a PCI component but also a simple preview of the item content as a static GitHub page. You can also archive your computer-based items as assessment material to research data centers.

How to Contribute?

Requirements for the development of the CBA ItemBuilder are collected and prioritized by the Centre for Technology-Based Assessment (TBA). If features are needed or need to be expanded for future projects, contact the .

Open Source development is more than welcomed for HTML5/JavaScript packages that can be used as ExternalPageFrame and for embedding of CBA ItemBuilder tasks using the TaskPlayer-API (see section 7.7) into open source software that can be used for test deployment.

Suggestions for example items, references or feedback about errors or improvement of this book can be provided to .