Assessment system for conducting exams and assessments in secondary vocational education

Introduction

Hello everyone! Today I will tell you about my assessment system, which is created for conducting exams and assessing students' knowledge. The system is built on Django Rest Framework (DRF) for the backend and React with MaterialUI for the frontend. I have added many useful features, including integration with ISPmanager, which make the system convenient and effective.

A few words about how it all began

It all started with the Demonstration Exam – a form of final assessment aimed at testing students’ practical knowledge and skills in real-life conditions. It is used to assess students’ ability to apply theoretical knowledge in practice and cope with professional tasks. Such an exam is especially important in vocational and technical education, where practical skills play a key role.

Example of assessment of work on the Demonstration Exam

The evaluation of work on the DE is carried out according to several criteria, which may include:

1. Accuracy of task execution

2. Quality of execution

4. Creativity and innovation

5. Level of professional skills

Example of the task: Creating a functional website for an online store.

Below is the example

Functionality (50 points)
1. The site must contain a home page, a product page, a shopping cart and a feedback form.
2. All navigation must be working, without errors.
Design and User Interface (30 points)
1. The site should be visually attractive and user-friendly.
2. Using HTML5 & CSS and JavaScript to improve the interface.
Code and structure (20 points)
1. The code should be clean, well structured and commented.
2. Using modern technologies and frameworks such as jQuery and Laravel/Yii2/Django.

Example of student work assessment

Functionality: The student has created all the necessary pages, but the feedback form does not work (30/50 points).
Design and user interface: The site looks professional and convenient, but there are minor flaws in the layout (25/30 points).
Code and structure: The code is well structured and commented, but the framework used is outdated (15/20 points).
Total score: 70/100

Now that you understand what the Demonstration Exam is and how it is scored, let's talk about our grading system, which was designed to improve and simplify this process.

Based on this exam in the system that they have for assessing work, I wanted to create the same system, only with more extensive functionality and integration with the ISPmanager system.

Main features of the system

Modules and assessment criteria: Each group of students has modules with established assessment criteria.
Integration with ISPmanager: Ability to upload handouts and server login data via ISPmanager.
Downloading final reports: Final reports can be downloaded in several formats:
1. Separate sheets for each student as an archive.
2. Handout with login details for the server.
3. A general statement containing data on all modules, criteria and students' final scores.
Loading data via Excel: Ability to load groups, modules and criteria with their description via Excel files, taking into account the selection of points.

Technical details

Backend: Django Rest Framework (DRF). DRF allows us to create robust and scalable APIs for frontend interaction. I chose it for:
• Excellent support for data serialization.
• Convenient tools for authentication and authorization.
• Ease of integration with various databases and external services.
Frontend: React + MaterialUI. React provides high performance and flexibility for developing user interfaces, while MaterialUI adds modern and user-friendly components. I chose them for:
• Creating responsive and interactive interfaces.
• Increased development speed thanks to the component approach.
• Intuitive and attractive design.

Examples of using

Here are some examples of how our system can be used:

Managing Modules and Groups: The teacher can easily create new modules, set assessment criteria and assign them to the desired group of students.
1. Loading data via Excel: The teacher can quickly load groups, modules and criteria from an Excel file, which greatly simplifies the system setup.
2. Report Download: After conducting exams, the teacher can download the final reports in the required format and analyze the students' results.

Benefits for users

Our system provides many benefits for different users:

Teachers: Convenient management of exams and grades, quick download of reports.
Students: Easy access to results and handouts.

On the modules page, there are modules – which the user has added, including points and which group the module belongs to. You can filter by groups.

On the group page, there are groups – they contain students, by going to the group, we can add or remove a student.

On the criteria page there is filtering by name and score. You can select Group or Module. There is a change in the design of this page.

Changing the page design "Criteria" in the form of cards — Changing the design of the “Criteria” page to cards

On the Students page, we can print data, view student data, delete/edit a student.

On the Assessment page, select Group, Student, Module. The criteria that relate to this module will appear on the page with the option to evaluate them for the maximum score, or enter the scores yourself and save the data.