Utrecht University has gained a new digital testing location. Starting on 29 October, Sportcentrum Olympos at the Uithof will offer space to administer digital exams to up to 600 students using Chromebooks. The new location brings the total number of digital testing seats at the university to 1,840. The flexible digital testing facilities allow the spaces to be used for other purposes as well. The students can take the tests in large groups using secure and reliable Chromebooks, and after the test the Chromebooks can be collected within 20 minutes to make the auditorium ready for use as a gym once more. 

The speed with which digital testing has grown at UU is unprecedented. Where only 18% of tests were administered digitally in the 2015/16 academic year, by 2018/19 that number had surpassed 53%. The demand for digital testing in period 1 of 2019/20 was so high, in fact, that some requests had to be denied. In order to meet the growing demand, new digital test facilities have been set up in Olympos at a record pace, and the first digital tests will be administered there on 29 October. With this expansion, UU is well on its way towards administering 75% of all tests digitally by the end of 2020. 

Student preference: digital testing 

A recent survey of more than 2,000 UU students has shown that students prefer digital tests (more than 62%) above paper tests (15%). Twenty-two percent stated that they have no preference. In 2015, these percentages were virtually reversed. The main reason students gave for their preference was that digital testing allowed them to structure their answers better, and that they could type faster than they could write by hand. 

Lecturers improve test quality using analysis function

In 2018, the education innovation programme Educate-it conducted research into the effect of digital testing on the quality of education among 81 lecturers. The results showed that lecturers mainly use the analyses generated automatically by the digital testing system to improve the test questions and the quality of the test. The survey also indicated that 83% of the lecturers use open questions, and 72% of them do so because they are better suited to the learning objective. In summary, the survey showed that lecturers who administer digital tests are consciously working on improving the quality of the tests.

Programmatic testing

In addition to digital testing using Chromebooks, Utrecht University also has 10 years of experience with programmatic testing at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. Many other study programmes will be following suit in the near future. Programmatic testing integrates learning and evaluation and provides insight into the student’s personal development. It also offers the lecturer information about the quality of the education. At the moment, the successful completion of a course is largely dependent on the result of a single exam, so much potentially valuable information goes unused. A programmatic approach to testing may be a solution. Meaningful feedback and reflection are essential elements to such an approach, which fits well within the Utrecht Education Model, where the focus lies on personal, activating education in which the student bears responsibility for his/her own development. For more information, read the blog by Harold Bok at TAUU.

Educate-itUtrecht University lecturers aren’t just switching to digital testing en masse; they are also rapidly enriching their curricula with knowledge clips and other teaching tools. Lecturers at Utrecht University decide for themselves how they would like to strengthen their education, for example through digital or programmatic testing. Their efforts are facilitated by Educate-it. The programme’s success lies in it’s bottom-up structure, in which educational innovation is demand-driven and not imposed from above. That structure ensures that lecturers remain the owners of their own teaching practice. Educate-it supports lecturers in strengthening their education and adapting it to the curriculum of the future. Educate-it assists lecturers in the practical use of IT tools and in the (re-)design of their curricula into a blended learning format. The programme’s activities are evidence-informed to the greatest possible extent.