LAST UPDATE: 2/19/07

1. INTRODUCTION
2. PREASSESSMENTS
3. PREASSESSMENT DEBRIEFINGS
4. PROFICIENCY EVALUATIONS

   This page  is the entry point for the online assessment component of this course. It provides "preassessments" (hard, thought-provoking preparations for course assessments) and "proficiency evaluations" (These focus on essentical concepts; students should make 100% on each of these before continuing.  These also form the prerequisite assessment for courses for which COSC 120 is a prerequisite, e.g. COSC 330.).   Each of the preassessments  and proficiency evaluations are accessable by clicking it.  After the particular preassessment or proficiency evaluation has been completed, you should access the "debriefing" (critique of problems encountered by typical students and other important things assoicated with the questions). 

     The proficiency evaluations and assessments and will, unless otherwise specified, have 50 multiple choice questions that are derived directly from the preassessment questions.  I will take 10 questions directly from the preassessment questions and place them as questions 41 - 50 on the associated proficiency evaluation and assessment.   Then I will rewrite questions 1 - 40; I may change some answers, but the correct answer to the question will remain, e.g. the correct answer to question 1 on the associated proficienty evaluation and assessment will be one of the four on the Preassessment.  So, you will have the answers; you just won't know the questions.  (However, DO NOT assume that this will be "easy"; it will be a challenging learning exercise!)  In order to prepare for each Assessment, do the following as we cover the relevant material. (NOT the night before it is due!)   (Don't turn in your answers to the preassessments or proficiency evaluation; since they are self-checking, there is no need,  Simply use them to study for the assessment.)

1. Answer the online preassessment questions by selecting the most appropriate answer (There may be more than one"correct" answer to the question!) to the multiple-choice questions from the drop-down menu under the question.
2. LEARNING EXERCISES USING MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS: Play "CYBER JEOPARDY" with the incorrect answers for each question, i.e. think up a question to which each is the correct answer. This way you should have sufficient questions that require you to "think" and thus prepare yourself for the coming proficiency evaluation and assessment! (Besides, you will be doing exactly what I will be doing when I created the proficiency evaluation and when I create the gradable assessment!)
3. Note that the preassessment questions are more difficult than typical "test questions". This is by design because a preassessment is NOT A TEST; it is a diagnostic tool designed TO PREPARE YOU FOR AN ASSESSMENT! Because many of the multiple choice answers are (by design) similar to one another, selecting the correct answer requires that you know the DIFFERENCE between the four choices, i.e. IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO "KNOW" THE DEFINITIONS of the words; you must UNDERSTAND what they represent. You probably will not be able to answer all (or even most!) of the preassessment questions without rereading the relevant text material and my notes. Don't feel bad; that is the purpose of a "PREassessment! It is designed to help you GO BEYOND KNOWLEDGE to UNDERSTANDING!
4. Answer the online proficiency evaluation questions by selecting the clicking the radio button for the most appropriate answer to the multiple-choice questions. (There may be more than one"correct" answer to the question!)  If you are not interested in receiving a grade for the course, the proficiency evaluations can serve as your course assessments, i.e. they are surrogates for the assessments I give to those are taking the course for credit.)

1. PREASSESSMENT 1:
1. HTML version of PREASSESSMENT 1: This preassessment covers learning modules I and II whose content is examined in ASSESSMENT 1.
2. ONLINE PREASSESSMENT 1: This preassessment covers learning modules I and II whose content is examined in ASSESSMENT 1.
2. PREASSESSMENT 2:
1. HTML version of PREASSESSMENT 2:This preassessment covers learning modules III and IV and Labs 4-7 whose content is examined in ASSESSMENT 2.
2. ONLINE PREASSESSMENT 2:
3. PREASSESSMENT 3:
1. HTML version of PREASSESSMENT 3:This preassessment covers learning modules V and VI and Labs 8-9 whose content is examined in ASSESSMENT 3.
2. ONLINE PREASSESSMENT 3:

1. PREASSESSMENT 1:
• Read the preamble to the preassessment to understand how I will construct Assessment 1.
• It seems that several students have yet to take advantage of the following online learning facilities.  Please do this; believe me, it will make a HUGE difference in utilizing the PreAssessment to debug your learning.  Of course, it is critical that you work on the preassessment as you study; DON'T wait until the night before the assessment!!!
1. You can find any word, e.g. the PreAssessment answers, in a LM by clicking on the question frame and selecting Find in Frame from the Edit menu. (Be sure to click the proper frame before doing this; I often mistakenly search the Navigation Panel when I want to search the right hand frame of these pages; this causes me to get a "not found" result.)  This is great way to make your use of the preassessments more efficient; just use it on each of the possible answers to instantly compare the concepts.
2. Any concept that you feel unclear about can be found instantly in one of the online references listed in the Navigation Panel always available we viewing a page of the course Web site.  For an introductory course, like COSC 120, I think the most helpful references are (first is best):
1. Webopedia
2. Computer Desktop Dictionary
3. What Is
4. FOLDOC (best for advanced courses)
• Most important (fundamental; worthy of inclusion on the final exam; the most fundamental are in bold.) questions: 1, 5, 6, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 23, 27, 30, and 31.
2. PREASSESSMENT 2:
• Now that the preassessments are reworkable online, there is really nothing to report here except comments from students.  I have not received any, so I guess everyone was able to use their personal feedback to correct their mistakes. Good!
• Be sure to start working on Preassessment 3 as soon as you start studying LM V.  I will publish the online version two days before the scheduled assessment.
• Most important (fundamental; worthy of inclusion on the final exam; the most fundamental are in bold.) questions: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 14, 15, 18, 19, 29, 30, 31, 34, 35, 38,  and 39.
3. PREASSESSMENT 3:
• Most important (fundamental; worthy of inclusion on the final exam; the most fundamental are in bold.) questions: 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 17, 18, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 32, 37, and 38.
• Question 7 is subtle.  ASCII is not the answer because it is a "code" used to create text files, with MIME extensions .txt.  However people do use the phrase "ASCII files" as a synonym for text files.

One of the things that upsets me most about "Formal Education" is the fact that students are typically not allowed to see the mistakes they make on their exams much less have the opportunity to learn from those mistakes and get credit for correcting them.  (Learning from mistakes is a central feature of my learning philosophy so all my students rework their exams and receive a grade normalization that raises their grade by an amount based on the percentage of their mistakes that they correct).  However, there is still a problem.  Because we must assign grades, security on traditional "tests" is important to the establishment.  Therefore, if I give my assessments back to students and they keep them, I must continually write new assessments every semester to protect the honest majority from a few (possible) cheaters.  Thus, assessments over the same content vary every semester and, obviously, some are better than others from a learning viewpoint.  To minimize this, I have devised a technique that will allow me to create the best assessment that I can write with the confidence that everyone of my students will make 100% on it -- eventually.  I change the name from "assessment" to "evaluation" because "assessments" are gradeable, but "evaluations" are self checking.  The following are the latest versions of the best evaluations  I can write, i.e. each evaluation has the best and most important questions I can think of on the material covered in the associated learning modules.  (Like the gradable Assessments will be, these proficiency evaluations are derived directly from the associated preassessments (See the preceding section.),  following the "rules" specified at the beginning of the PreAssessments.  I place these proficiency evaluations  in the "public domain", so that everyone can not only evaluate their current learning but can also detect mistakes and go back and correct them before retaking the online evaluation again.  You should keep correcting mistakes until you UNDERSTAND %100 of the evaluation; THIS defines "proficiency"!

1. PROFICIENCY EVALUATION 1 (Assessment 1 for learners not interested in a grade in the course.): HTML version.
2. PROFICIENCY EVALUATION 2 (Assessment 2 for learners not interested in a grade in the course.): HTML version.
3. PROFICIENCY EVALUATION 3 (Assessment 3 for learners not interested in a grade in the course.): HTML version.
4. FINAL PROFICIENCY EVALUATION (FINAL EXAM for learners not interested in a grade in the course.): HTML version.