A Novel Agent-Supported Academic Online Examination System

Abstract

Proper execution of exams aimed at assessment & evaluation is of critical importance in Learning Management Systems (LMS). Problems arising from human-centered errors or technical difficulties may lead to questioning of exams, and thus of reliability and efficiency of the distance education systems. Online examination system architecture proposed in this paper provides for integrated management of main functions such as question pool creation and update, exam authoring, execution and evaluation, and management of the feedbacks from students, along with ensuring use of analysis reports related to the questions and exams created by an intelligent agent in the decision-making processes. After conducting analyses on the distance education (DE) system of Sakarya University, it was found that the proposed intelligent agent supported online exam system detects the problems that arise to a large extent and enables the instructors to decide more easily in a shorter time. This system, which is possible to expand with its flexible structure to include additional intelligent features with the aim of resolving different problems, can also be adapted to different institutions that use online examination systems.