How to apply objective tests in the pandemic

As soon as the Covid-19 pandemic began and classes were suspended, teachers had to adapt quickly. I believe that this adaptation, to a large extent, has been limited to the transposition of face-to-face classes to the same video classes. As a result, during the pandemic, the concern with evaluation took a back seat, as we had more urgent problems.

In fact, within my universe (I am a professor at a Law School), I feel that there has always been a preponderant concern with teaching activities (with evaluation activities kept in the background). In addition, we need to take into account that the law course works with many conceptual subjects - which requires the application of essay tests. In other words, as in the humanities in general, the law course is a fertile ground for more open tests.

In practice, until the need for personal isolation, the teachers with whom I am closest were more dedicated to evaluations ended up investing in evaluation techniques that required face-to-face meetings and creativity. But what now? Well, now we all have a greater incentive to invest in assessments that are objective and can be applied remotely without too much trouble.

Luckily for me, the subjects I teach are quite dogmatic, with a lot of basis in the law. So I was able to invest in an objective evaluation solution and remote application.

My current option is the Akindi , which stands as an option to the American market leader (called Scantron and which does exactly what the large and expensive scanners for objective proof correction have always done). This comparison may not make much sense to us, but it is important to understand who Akindi's audience is and the reason why they do not offer Portuguese translation in their service or any of their materials.

See Akindi in action in the following video . This is a simulation of the test, in the view of a student, who has just received the invitation to carry out the activity:

Now that we've seen how Akindi stands and how it works, I'll tell you how I see Akindi. It is a solution for applying tests on paper or remotely, whose differential is its simplicity. You don't need any elaborate system to use Akindi, you just need to have an email list and a registration number, which can be the official number or any number created for your control.

Although it is a stand-alone tool, it is possible to integrate with the most robust learning systems on the market, including: Blackboard, Canvas, Moodle, and Brightspace. It is possible to conclude that, with this strategy, Akindi is targeting rich schools, which already have a robust Learning Management System (LMS) system.

With this type of integration, the roll call continues to work in the main LMS and Akindi works as a layer, practically invisible, for the application of tests. In my case, with no LMS and no need integration, it is even easier to opt for Akindi, as it has a free plan to manage only one class, with one assessment at a time .

To manage more than one class with the same login, it would be necessary to pay USD 99 per year, in estimated values. I say estimated, because currently Akindi no longer publishes a price list and only works with budgets on a case-by-case basis. So this old value can currently be much higher.

As it is a program that takes care of only one task, the implementation of its functionalities can be seamless. In Support Area From Akindi you can see a little bit of how the workflow has no bottlenecks and how the system is, at the same time, simple and powerful. It is a product in constant evolution, as can be seen in the News area of Akindi.

The weakest points, if any, are known to the development team. As an example, Akindi does not have a native editor for the elaboration of questions with complex formatting, because its option is to convert a test that has been prepared in Word only with text. Not ideal, but that's okay as you can fix the import errors manually afterwards. Also, I don't use graphics in my exams.

Some aspects of Akindi are really amazing, for example, it is possible: schedule a test time, limit the duration of the test, set up different durations for students with special needs, prevent the student from being able to go back to review their markings, display one question at a time, shuffle the test questions for each student , send notifications to each student, etc.

In addition to offering a robust solution for the application of the test, sending a personalized email to each student, Akindi has an administration area with graphs that indicate to the teacher which are the easy and difficult questions. This is just an example, but it already illustrates the program's capacity.

All this makes Akindi my definitive option, after so many years looking for a tool that would be able to meet my assessment needs, especially in the scenario of social isolation in which we find ourselves. I know Moodle does all of this, but Akindi's elegance is unbeatable.