Semantic Formative E-Assessment for Project Management Professionals

The paper presents the module for formative e-assessment in a complex learning management system. The module implements the automatic evaluation of answers to open questions and provides feedback related to further reading or joining suitable expert communities. The evaluation of the questions is accomplished using diverse ontology-related technologies and open-source tools, such as GATE, WordNet, Text2Onto, OpenNLP, Jena API, Alignment API, Protégé. A use-case scenario is offered for trainees willing to obtain a project management professional certification. The challenges of integration and optimal exploitation of such a module into a learning management system are underlined, stressing the fact that the mapping between concepts which have to be evaluated through assessment and professional competences standards has not currently a straightforward solution. Thus, we could say the system-based solution we envisioned is both technology-driven and need-driven: based on combining recent semantic technologies, it satisfies the experts´ urge to provide competency-based learning aligned to well-established standards which reflect the market requirements and the trainees´ need of having an intelligent tool helping them to prepare for open-questions based exams, which are currently less supported by IT.