Session S3F

A NOVEL WEB-BASED ONLINE EXAMINATION SYSTEM FOR COMPUTER

SCIENCE EDUCATION
Yuan Zhenming 1 , Zhang Liang2 , Zhan Guohua3

Abstract – Web-based Examination System is an effective Windows printer setup operation and Word editing, etc. in
solution for mass education evaluation. We have developed the client computer.
a novel online examination system based on a Our examination system fo r basic computer operating
Browser/Server framework which carries out the skills has the following characteristics: (1) The question
examination and auto-grading for objective questions and types include not only objective questions, but also operating
operating questions, such as programming , operating questions as Windows, MS Word, MS Excel, Internet skills,
Microsoft Windows, editing Microsoft Word , Excel and etc. (2) The goal of the learning and testing system is to train
PowerPoint, etc. It has been successfully applied to the the practical skills. As a result, operating and testing in the
distance evaluation of basic operating skills of computer actual environment of the client machine is the best learning
science, such as the course of computer skills in Universities method. (3) It is urgent to develop an automatic grading
and the nationwide examination for the high school system which can grade the operating questions as well as
graduates in Zhejiang Province, China. the objective ones. However, the previous Web-based
learning and testing system cannot support such functions.
Index Terms – Examination system, Auto-grading system, We have developed a novel online examination system
Web-based, DCOM based on a Browser/Server framework using state-of-art
computer technologies, which carries out the examinations
1. INTRODUCTION for basic computer operating skills including objective tests,
Visual Basic programming, Microsoft Windows operating ,
Word, Excel and PowerPoint editing, Internet and Email
In China, the education for basic computer operating skills skills, etc. It has also implemented automatic grading online.
has been broadly launched. The skills include the operating
of Windows, MS Office, Networking skills, etc., which are
the foundation of a combination of different courses, as well
2. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
as of electronic-government. Now, every undergraduate
must pass the course of the Computer skills, while every Our web-based examination system is a distributed
civil servant must pass the corresponding Computer collaborative system which is based on DCOM technology.
Operating Exams. Furthermore, the basic computer It has four major components : the examination preparation
education in high schools is in process. Since the late system, the examination system, the examination monitor
1990’s, hundreds of thousands of people have taken part in system and the auto-grading system.
different levels of computer education and testing in
Zhejiang Province. It is necessary to build a Web-based l The preparation system is used to manage question
learning and examination system for such a large number of storage, assign test ID and schedule the test. The
people, as an effective solution to mass learning and question database is composed of the questions, a set of
evaluation of basic computer education. possible answers, the question types and other metadata,
Several Web-based learning and testing systems have which are indexed by several factors, such as topics,
been designed, such as WebCT [1], QUIZIT[2], ASSYST[3], keywords, complexity and difficulty, etc. The database
and PILOT[4]. The most widely used question types of the is open to teachers, allowing them to add questions and
Web-based examination system are objective tests and answers by template.
quizzes which assume simple answers that can be formally l The examination System is a web-based testing
checked and easily evaluated online. The typical questions interface for students , called WOES , which include the
are limited to yes/no questions, multiple -choice/single- following key features: client side control, time control,
answer questions, multiple-choice/multiple-answer questions, security control and auto-installation. Benefiting from
and fill-in questions with a string and numeric answer.[5] DCOM technology, the system can install and update
Richer types of answers in these systems need to be graded itself conveniently, better than the C/S framework.
manually by the course graders or the instructors. In addition, Because the system is established on the Web, the
these systems do not support testing operating skills, such as systematic security faces a severe challenge. We

1
Yuan Zhenming, Computer Science Department, Hangzhou Teacher’s College, No.222 Wenyi Street, Hangzhou , Zhejiang, PRC. zmyuan@cs.zju.edu.cn.
2
Zhang Liang, Computer Science Department, Hangzhou Teacher’s College, No.222 Wenyi Street, Hangzhou , Zhejiang, PRC. zhl@hztc.edu.cn.
3
Zhan Guohua, Computer Science Department, Hangzhou Teacher’s College, No.222 Wenyi Street, Hangzhou , Zhejiang, PRC. ghzhan@hztc.edu.cn.
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guarantee the security by cryptography, real-time

monitoring system and data transmission encryption. Web Server
WOES Server WOES DB
The cryptography is used to validate student
identification before testing.
Internet/Intranet
l The real-time monitoring system requires students
not to leave the computer during the test by face
tracking technology. The data transmission encryption Router

system transmits the examination question and result in

secret form through the network to the server. The Workstation Workstation Workstation

WOES Client WOES Client WOES Manager

examination monitor system is also the manager of the IE IE IE
examination system, by which we can monitor the test
processing, carry out test ID statistic and collect the FIGURE 1
answers, etc. MULTI -LAYER WOES
l The auto-grading system is designed by the fuzzy
The kernel of WOES is the WOES middleware Server
matching algorithm and the macro programming
and the WOES client module, which is designed according
technology, which is seasoned with variable question
to Microsoft DCOM standards. DCOM is the binary COM
types.
object’s extension jointing LAN, WAN and Internet, which
can instance and bind objects over different network. It is an
3. WEB-BASED ONLINE EXAMINATION S YSTEM advanced network protocol used to cooperate with COM
based components of two processes in different locations.
3.1 The aim of the examination system The WOES middleware Server is a server-side component
providing communication interfaces between WOES clients
As a universal examination system for the education of basic and the Web Server or Database Server. The WOES client is
computer operation, it must meet the following a client-side component which is called by the Browser to
requirements:[6] control the client computer and submit or receive
information from the WOES Server. This technology
1. A reasonable question storage, which must conform to guarantees the flexibility and the potential for extension of
the general outline of the exam. the test system. In addition, it allows access to local files,
2. A practical interface. There are two types of exam whereas in conventional systems, the IE security prevents
interfaces. One is the simulation, the other is the actual such access.
environment. The second scheme will give the student
more flexibility because of the practical nature of Submit

computer skills.
3. A range of question types , such as objective questions,
WOES Client WOES Server WOES
operating questions, design questions, information Internet DB
retrieval, group testing, etc. Internet Information
Explorer Server
4. A safety and reliable examination system.
Receive

3.2 The components of WOES

FIGURE 2
The Web based Online Examination System (WOES ) is a COMMUNICATION OF CLIENT AND SERVER
multi-layer system which is composed of the Web Server,
Database Server, WOES middleware Server, WOES client Benefiting from DCOM, the WOES clients can be
module and Browser, such as Internet Explorer. In this downloaded or updated automatically from WOES
system, we use the Internet Information Server 4.0(IIS) as middleware Server on the Internet. They can also move from
the Web Server, the Database Server is Microsoft SQL one client to the other and communicate with the WOES
Server 7.0. Server. The system acts like an Agent society, which is a
centralized Agent system controlled by only the WOES
Server.

3.3 The key technologies of WOES

1. A user-friendly interface
We use browser as our user’s interface. The Browser
interface has a uniform and consistent user interface. Almost
everyone is able to use it skillfully. Therefore it can
0-7803-7961-6/03/$17.00 © 2003 IEEE November 5-8, 2003, Boulder, CO
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eliminate the differences of various exam systems and 4. AUTO- GRADING S YSTEM
guarantee a fair test.
2. Simplified system maintenance The auto-grading system can automatically grade the
Since the system is based on Browser/Server architecture, answers, which are collected from the examination system.
the teacher can update the system or the question database or It helps teachers to achieve the score with ease.
examine the student’s database only in Server. It is not There are two types of the grading: objective questions
necessary to update the client system as the Client/Server and operating questions. Objective questions, such as choice
must do. questions, yes/no questions, and fill-in questions, can be
3. Central examination management graded effectively by accurate matching or fuzzy matching.
Profiting from the central controlled system, the teacher But it is difficult to grade operating questions by simple
can easily control the examination process, such as the matching technologies. A possible solution could be: (1)
beginning and end of the exam, collecting the answers and Reading the answer file directly and comparing it to the key
monitoring the students’ conditions on the teacher’s screen. file. But this is not practical because the format of Microsoft
4. Security Office files is complicated. Another solution is: (2) grading
The most severe difficulty which the B/S based system
by using the Office OLE object. This method is convenient
faces is security, because in principle the web-based and efficient, but it has a big disadvantage: the source code
examination system can be accessed on the Internet or WAN of the grading system is closely related to the concrete
in a city.
question, which results in a large amount of work when the
questions are changed.
l All the questions, materials and answers are transmitted We propose a universalized grading system which is
in bits stream format after encoding, not in file format.
carried out on the basis of a database of key knowledge.
It can ensure not only security in the transmission
process, but also protect from invasion. Key table of
knowledge
l When one student starts his test, the system will Question
distribute him a password produced according to his production
system
client’s hardware and operation system environment. It
Auto-grading Detailed rules
can prevent cribbers to login from other clients system table
imitating this student.
l The newest method to prevent the distant student from
leaving the client or is making use of face detection and
recognition technology. Before the start of the exam,
The
the student is asked to sit in front of the computer The Compare standard
camera which can monitor the whole scene. Then the answer key
library
system will automatically recognize the student’s face
and his identification. As soon as the validation is
performed, the student must stay in front of the camera FIGURE 4
UNIVERSAL AUTO- GRADING SYSTEM
until the exam is finished.
First, we extract all possible knowledge points and store
them in a triple form: (key, value, location). Then we
produce the question file by labeling the question point
directly on it; the system will add the corresponding question
key to the standard key library. So, the last process of auto-
grading system is to compare the answer file with the
standard key library. The auto-grading system also allows
the teacher to add his /her own questions to our examination
system.

5. CONCLUSION
We have developed an overall solution to the examination
system for practical computer skills . It provides a user-
FIGURE 3 friendly platform of various questions for the basic computer
USER-FRIENDLY INTERFACE OF EXAMINATION SYSTEM
education in Universities, civil servant training and
nationwide examination for high school graduates in
Zhejiang Province, Hundreds of thousands of students and

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33 rd ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference
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 Session S3F

teachers have used this system and agree that it has effectively
raised the learning and testing efficiency.

6. REFERENCES

[1] WebCT,“Web Courses Tolls”,http://www.webCT.com.

[2] Tinoco, L., Fox, E. and Barnette, D. “Online evaluation in WWW-based
courseware”, In Proceedings of the 28 th SIGCSE Technical
Symposium(1997), pp. 194-198.
[3] Jackson, D., Usher, M. “Grading student programs using ASSYS T”, In
Proceedings of the 28th SIGCSE Technical Symposium (1997), pp.335-339.
[4] Stina, B., Michael T., Stephen G., Roberto T., “PILOT: An Interactive
Tool for Learning and Grading”, SIGCSEB: SIGCSE Bulletin,2000.
[5] Peter Brusilovsky and Philip Miller, “ Web-based Testing for Distance
Education”, Proceedings of WebNet'99, World Conference of the WWW
and Internet, Honolulu, HI, Oct. 24-30, 1999, AACE, pp. 149-154
[6]RuiMin Shen, Yiyang Tang, Tongzhen Zhang, “The intelligent
assessment system in Web-Based Distance Learning Education”, FIE 2001 .

0-7803-7961-6/03/$17.00 © 2003 IEEE November 5-8, 2003, Boulder, CO

33 rd ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference
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