The Relevance of Formative and Summative Assessment: Enhancing Transparency in Evaluation by Using iCloudEMS

 The term ‘Evaluation’ is an embodiment of a specific and transparent process of assessment of the performance of the learners of a specific course/program in the educational Institutes, for a specific program that aims to measure the potential, abilities, and skills of learners in the areas of cognitive approach of understanding or comprehending a subject or course or program in an effective way. However, the process of assessment facilitates both the course instructors as well as learners to monitor their progress towards achieving learning objectives and the desired goals conforming to the course syllabi/curriculum and expectations or visions of the institute. Generally, there are two types of assessments to measure the progress of the learners—A Formative Assessment and A Summative Assessment.

A Formative Assessment procedure refers to the teaching-learning and the assessment tools used throughout a class or course that help both the assessor and the assessed identify misconceptions, struggles, and learning gaps, while assessing and finding out ways to overcome or eliminate such gaps. A Formative Assessment process also facilitates learners to take ownership of their learning styles or give independent ways of learning styles when they understand its goals to pace and improve learning styles or achieve learning outcomes. Preferably, formative assessment strategies facilitate teaching and learning simultaneously. Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick suggest a Seven Principle Model (2007) that can enrich instructor’s strategies while rendering formative assessment to maintain transparency in evaluation, motivate learners, and enrich their learning experiences:

• Keep clear criteria for what defines good performance 
• Encourage students’ self-reflection
• Give students detailed, actionable feedback 
• Encourage teacher and peer dialogue around learning 
• Promote positive motivational beliefs and self-esteem 
• Provide opportunities to close the gap between current and desired performance 
  

A Summative Assessment helps the course instructor evaluate learners’ learning potentials and styles, comprehension, knowledge gained during interaction or learning of the course, proficiency, or success after the completion of a unit, course, or program. Further, Summative Assessments are almost always formally graded and often heavily weighted (though they do not need to be). Summative assessment can be used to great effect in conjunction and alignment with formative assessment. Because summative assessments are usually higher stakes than formative assessments, it is especially important to ensure that the assessment aligns with the goals and expected outcomes of instruction. The following points may be considered for deliberation on the process of summative assessment to maintain transparency in evaluation, and motivate learners:

• Use a Rubric or Table of Specifications 
• Design Clear, Effective Questions 
• Assess Comprehensiveness 
• Make Parameters Clear 
• Consider Blind Grading 
  

The above pointers pertaining to the formative and summative assessment of learners clearly indicate that they are not only different in nature, but they also require separate strategies and plans to maintain transparency in the assessment of learners’ performance. The course instructors, therefore, need to design activities, tests etc. by considering their separate roles.

The Role of the Digital Platform—iCloudEMS in Enhancing Transparency in the Process of Evaluation and the Stakeholders’ Feedback

In the recent years, the Digital Platform—iCloudEMS has not only proved to be an integral part of the Education Technology (ET) to support the young and vibrant learners of the 21^st century fulfill their dreams, but it has also focused on the universal call for education to all for the betterment of humans.  It has bridged the gap between the academic institutes and the learners or parent or stakeholders by facilitating them with the free access to view the learners or wards performance at any time and anywhere. Further, it has eased the process of evaluation or assessment of the different courses or programs offered by an academic institute and supported the academic institutes showcase transparency in evaluation to enhance the confidence of the learners, guardian, and stakeholders. However, the iCloudEMS facilitates the following needs of the learners:

• The iCloudEMS plays a pivotal role in assessment of learners. It facilitates course instructors’ parental access to schedule activities appropriate for assessment (formative/summative as applicable) of learners. With its unique feature, parents and guardians can have access to their wards’ assessments. 
• The iCloudEMS fosters diverse assessment options to the learners who come from diverse socio-cultural, economic, and educational backgrounds.  With the support of the multiple formats, course instructors get the choice to design activities like short quizzes, Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs), basic questionnaires, warm up activities and other assessment activities. Similarly, learners have multiple formats for uploading their work like PDF, Screenshots, Podcasts, Videos by using the iCloudEMS as a digital platform.
• Further, being a digital platform, the iCloudEMS backs up the data of the learners to track their performance as well as the data of their assessment and attendance that helps the course instructors to be vigilant to learners’ progression with learning assignments. In this way, learners with weak comprehension or who need extra or remedial classes can easily be identified by the course instructors to plan the remedial/revision classes for them. Consequently, intelligent, brilliant, meritorious, and intelligible learners get motivated to participate in extracurricular activities for the development of their overall skills focusing on their personality. 
• The students can check and verify on their own whether they have done it correctly or not and if they find that they have not done correctly, what is the correct method from the iCloudEMS portal.  Moreover, the faculty can also upload the short questions and the probable answers for the same.  It can appear to the learners if somebody writes a wrong answer.
• The learners can also view the Automatic attainment of formative and summative assessments.  It can happen automatically based on the input provided in the beginning.  The learners need not to do the cumbersome calculation for all the papers and all the examinations.
• The records of all the stakeholders including the industry can also be seen at any time and anywhere consequently, they can identify the attainment level of all the desired skills required by the industry.
• Finally, the iCloudEMS develops confidence among the learners as well the course instructors by providing a transparent digital feedback Management System. The learners can view their results and feedback of formative and summative assessments easily. The feedback and the results can also be shared to the parental page consequently, the parents have the opportunity to view the course-wise result of their wards. Moreover, the formative and summative assessment records become a permanent part of the learners’ aspirations and it is also stored for the permanent record of the institution for future perusal.
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How Accreditation stimulates and appreciates the Quality and Excellence in Higher Education

  In today’s globalised world, quality higher education is required to foster creativity, talent, innovation and research attitude in youth but under present dynamic situations, it is critical to guarantee that the educational institute accomplishes the learning outcomes and education meets the minimum criteria. Accreditation, a significant quality assurance instrument, is used to evaluate the national higher education system. Accreditation is regarded as a quality seal that certifies that an accredited institute or programme meets certain criteria. It serves two major purposes: quality assurance and quality improvement. Quality assurance is the process of determining a minimum acceptable standard of quality and performance in the public interest. Quality improvement is the process of providing a service that is designed to improve institutions and programmes through an external review process.

Quality and Excellence in Higher Education

Various people have different perspectives on quality. Nonetheless, everyone understands what “quality” means. The degree of satisfaction expressed by the consumer receiving the service can be used to rate the service’s quality. The definition of quality in the dictionary is “the degree of excellence.” It indicates that a product, organisation, or institution must have some key criteria, qualities, or distinguishing factor that provides satisfaction to the people who use the service. It has to do with people’s feelings of satisfaction and perceptions.

In different contexts, excellence in higher education can mean different things. It can be characterised as demonstrating an institution’s position and academic reputation from the standpoint of students. This, however, is contingent on the experiences of students and the purposes of the institutions. Accreditors have frequently used the phrase “excellence.” to determine the level of quality processes and services provided by institutions in order to ensure the satisfaction of stakeholders. Many accrediting authorities have described quality and excellence as a measurable parameter that include a mix of skills, knowledge, experience. as well as continuous improvement in outputs.

Need of Accreditation in Higher Education

Several events have occurred recently that have altered the perception of quality assurance standards in higher education. These include:

Growth and Development of Higher Education

The broadening of the foundations of elementary and secondary education has emerged from national initiatives to ensure education for all. As a result, demand for and availability of higher education has risen dramatically in recent decades. The fact that higher education is a visible component of society and contributes to national growth and well-being is now universally acknowledged by governments all over the world. Many institutions had to examine and vary not only their course offerings, but also many areas of their internal reorganisation and teaching-learning process as a result of the increased amount of activity and diversity of their student body. To ensure institutional responsibility to funding agencies and other stakeholders, the extent to which relevant institutional efforts adequately respond to changing societal and economic requirements must be examined.

Influence of Technology

Changes in study requirements, teaching and learning arrangements, and areas such as research organisation and university administrative practise have all been influenced by major advancements in information technology. There is a greater emphasis on multi-media tactics for boosting teaching and learning, which necessitates a rethinking of traditional quality assurance structures.

Alternative sources for Higher Education

The introduction of non-traditional higher education providers, such as open and virtual universities, private schools’ growth, multi-campus institutions’ growth, and franchising, has fractured the higher education market. As a result, quality assurance techniques that have shown to be effective for a system of essentially national, government-funded self-accrediting traditional and distant education institutions must be revisited.

Competitiveness on the global avenue

Most higher education institutions have proven to be quite effective and entrepreneurial in attracting students from both within and outside of their own country. Because there is a clear policy encouraging Indian students to pursue higher education overseas, it has become a significant contributor to India’s external accounts through fees paid by international students and the selling and promotion of services. Many other countries’ universities are likewise interested in enrolling students and delivering services. In a way, educational services are both imported and exported. India today finds itself in an international setting where the quality of tertiary education and research will determine its success.

Keeping all such parameters in consideration, it is believed that India would benefit from establishing a national system of external certification. The policies, attitudes, behaviours, and procedures required to ensure that quality is maintained and improved are referred to as Quality assurance. Accreditation is the process of determining whether or not a certain institution is eligible for a qualifying certificate. The status may have repercussions for the institution (e.g., permission to operate), its students (e.g., grant eligibility), and/or its graduates (e.g., qualifications for specific jobs).

Current Quality Assurance Practices in Higher Education

For the establishment and operationalization of higher education institutions, government organisations such as the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) have developed regulations and recommendations. These bodies’ information can be utilised to make quality improvement and assurance decisions based on the data they collect and analyse. The credentials framework outlines the types of awards available in higher education, and apex authorities keep track of recognised programmes and providers.

Universities have internal mechanisms for evaluating new course ideas and promoting staff development, and most have established relationships with other universities to support staff exchanges, research collaboration, and course delivery benchmarking. A variety of mechanisms are in place for assessing and improving teaching, as well as reporting and scrutinising staff publishing and research records. The majority of promotion criteria centre on teaching excellence, research engagement, and community service initiatives.

For a variety of reasons, it has been standard practise to have external assessors conduct programme reviews in order to evaluate the quality of academic activities with that of other leading universities. External reviewers developed a quality assurance mechanism that relies on one or a combination of methodologies, the most important of which are self-studies or self-evaluation, peer review by expert panels, use of relevant statistical information and performance indicators, and service to key groups such as students, graduates, and employers.

Role of iCloudEMS to ensure quality and evaluating arrangements for the effective implementation of strategies for accomplishing specified goals in Higher Education Institutes.

With our innovative products and services, we at iCloudEMS are continually assisting Higher Education Institutes in improving their quality standards. Our Accreditation management system is a cloud-based programme with SIS and other modules that is designed for all sorts of technical and nontechnical Higher Education Institutes and delivers results in compliance with the Washington Accord, LIMA Accord, and Bologna Process.

• Accreditation bodies often demand and analyse data over a couple of years, but manually organizing and formatting such a vast volume of data is a time-consuming operation prone to redundancy and missing data. Our cloud-based technology makes data management and rule-compliant formatting a breeze.

• Accreditation journey starts with self-analysis reports formation only. Our system can generate a range of self-assessment and analysis reports for your institution, such as SER/SAR/AQAR/IQAC/AACSB, with just a few clicks.

• Uploading data to accreditation portals is a pre-requisite prior to a peer team’s visit; our unique features make this process easier, including the possibility to use prefilled data on the portal during the multi-year data collection process.

• There are pre-defined questionnaires in line with different criteria of accreditation bodies, and the answers are requested to be entered through responses to such pre-set questions based on certain parameters. We digitally support in making data and results uploading easier and in the required manner only.

• Self-evaluation is a crucial part of the accrediting process, and reports are more effective than words at communicating findings. Throughout accreditation assessments and qualification analysis, we assist faculty members by automating the preparation of the main self-assessment reports, as well as various supplementary reports.

• Our expert database verification team investigates the standards and criteria to be certified by compiling and managing data in chronological order.

• Using our tiered evaluation approach, institutes can swiftly analyse the benchmarking standards and obtain a fast reckoner on the current situation.

• With only a few clicks, our user-friendly system assists governing bodies in conducting a fair and complete audit of well-organized data and reports.

It can be stated that iCloudEMS provides a well-managed digital environment for automating and simplifying the time-consuming and repetitive accrediting processes. For quality monitoring and improvement, our complete Accreditation management system allows for an error-free mapping of learning outcomes with the institute’s objective and vision. In today’s competitive environment, it’s more important than ever for Higher Education Institutes to invest in a digital partner like iCloudEMS that can align workflow with the institute’s strategic plans to assure quality assurance and improvement on a regular basis.

Source from: https://www.icloudems.com/how-accreditation-stimulates-and-appreciates-the-quality-and-excellence-in-higher-education/

How iCloudEMS strengthens the digital capabilities of Higher Education with its Online Classes and Examination management system

 Technology has proven its true potential by revolutionizing the conventional teaching learning methodologies and bringing the transformation in Higher Education. Our government has never left any stone unturned to leverage technology in stretching the wings of the Education system to make it accessible and affordable for every student worldwide. COVID-19 has accelerated the deployment of the Education Management System to support uninterrupted Education learning and administration. Online Classes and Examination management System is a cloud-based solution that simplifies the administration intricacies of Classes and Examination. It removes the physical barriers in delivering and assessment of student-centric quality education.

Now, let’s understand the importance of Online Classes and Examination system

Online Classes management:

COVID-19 has made the Institutes transform their traditional classroom-led teaching-learning practices with Online or Virtual learning sessions in blink of an eye and the best part is both faculty and students have leveraged the latest technologies to access quality E-learning and Examination. iCloudEMS has offered a plethora of digital possibilities for an enriching learning experience using online whiteboards, video conferencing, learning management system, instant messaging and many more tools to connect students and instructors any time and from anywhere over the internet. We cater the specific needs of learners with our versatile digital resources for both LIVE and recorded sessions to channelize the valuable efforts of instructors towards a flexible and progressive student-centric learning environment. The major advantages of our Online Classes product are:

• We deliver an online platform where both teachers and students are free to arrange their learning according to their mutual preferences and learning styles to fill in the gaps and improve outcomes.
• Our advanced learning methodology tends to promote pupil-teacher and peer networking across borders and cultural boundaries, making it easier to incorporate research and innovation into learning theories.
• We offer online cloud-based documentation and repository that makes 24/7 access to study materials and progress records that facilitates digital governance of learning goals.
• Our system is an economical learning investment that can easily be afforded with reasonable service subscriptions and a one-time hardware expenditure.
  

Online Examination and Evaluation:

iCloudEMS brings a comprehensive cloud-based Online Examination System that simplifies the myriad of tedious and challenging Examination and Evaluation responsibilities with efficient management of material and human resources. The important features of our product include:

• Automatic scheduling and posting of examination datasheets that eliminates expected scheduling conflicts between exams on the same day.
• Collaborative question paper setting mechanism that makes the faculty members to easily coordinate with each other and higher authorities to ensure outcome-based learning assessment that follows OBE and Bloom’s taxonomy guidelines.
• Automated approach for assigning invigilation duties and exam centre to faculty members on different groups of students that streamlines the administration to conduct multiple exams with many students at the same time.
• Our LIVE proctoring attribute includes fool proof invigilation feature that ascertains integrity of Examination under a reliable digital-driven environment.
• The digital ecosphere safeguards the purity of evaluation by making the answer sheets and results completely immune to tampering.
• We present a labour-saving strategy that minimizes the time of assessment and publishing results under a transparent avenue for all the stakeholders.
  

The importance of online education and on-demand examination has been advocated in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 to encourage skill-oriented learning practices. It galvanizes the use of digital platforms and the latest learning endeavors like national MOOC courses, DIKSHA and SWAYAM to empower sustained quality education globally. Recent unfavorable situations such as epidemics and pandemics have necessitated utilizing ICT-based education while addressing all potential hurdles. iCloudEMS is a game changer and has always been supportive of institutes’ technical demands in order to foster a modern education atmosphere in a digitally driven environment where one can reap the unseen benefits in situations where traditional classroom learning is not viable.

Source from: https://www.icloudems.com/how-icloudems-strengthens-the-digital-capabilities-of-higher-education-with-its-online-classes-and-examination-management-system/