RETHINKING WEB-BASED TESTING: COMPROSO—AN OPEN SOURCE TESTING TOOL. Thiemo J. Kunze1,3, Christoph J. Kemper2, Nicolas Becker1, & Samuel Greiff2 Saarland University1 and University of Luxembourg2 3contact
the author via email:
[email protected]
INTRODUCTION
IN ACTION
Today, Computerized Tests (CTs) often neglect the technologically
Comproso primarily provides methods to develop
available means by being simple adaptions of their paper and pencil
and manage tests. In this section, we present
versions. Considering the small market for free web-based testing
several examples of how test items may be
tools, we decided to introduce Comproso. Comproso is an Open
presented by Comproso.
Comproso in action: comproso.org/itc2016/examples
Example 1. mini-q
Source tool kit supporting test development and management with
(Baudson & Preckel, 2015)
only low software requirements.
An intelligence screening.
FEATURES
Example 2. LeiSe
Considering the general structure of most behavioral CTs, we
Developed by Kunze, Stahl, & Becker
implemented it into the Comproso framework. Usually, a CT contains
A Complex Problem Solving (CPS) scenario.
one or more steps or pages to be performed. Each page requires at least one test item that can be of a specific type (e.g. a 5-pointLikert-scaled personality test item):
DISCUSSION In contrast to other available software, Comproso is primarily a tool This scheme allows Comproso to represent many different CTs and
box for test development and test management. Therefore, it
CT types, including performance tests.
provides methods and functionalities to facilitate development and test administration of web-based CTs, such as data management or
To provide a maximum of flexibility, we published Comproso under
test item delivery.
the AGPL Open Source license and designed it to run under most common web server configurations requiring PHP as programming
Comproso offers a great freedom to test developers including
language and an SQL-database such as MySQL. In addition, CTs
licensing, test sharing and support of innovative item types. In
realized within Comproso are designed as software packages. As a
addition, Comproso is very flexible for test users. It provides online
consequence Comproso allows importing, modifying, combining and
as well as offline testing, and test users are able to import, modify
sharing of CTs and testing data.
and combine existing available tests. Therefore we cooperate with several test authors allowing us to provide their tests, all of them at
Furthermore, we were able to establish cooperation with several test
least free for scientific purposes.
authors providing their tests that are at least free to use for scientific purposes. At this time the tests include a personality and an
Having special needs, other software should be considered. For
intelligence screening, an intelligence test and a Complex Problem
instance, surveys are easier to conduct with tools such as
Solving test. We will add further tests soon.
LimeSurvey (https://limesurvey.org), or using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk for test taker recruitment suggests the use of psiTurk (https://psiturk.org).
REFERENCES
ABOUT COMPROSO
Baudson, T. G., & Preckel, F. (2015). mini-q: Intelligenzscreening in drei Minuten [mini-q: Intelligence Screening in Three
Comproso is an Open Source (AGPL) licensed tool box for test development and
Minutes]. Diagnostica, 1–16. 10.1026/0012-1924/a000150
administration. In addition it provides to web-based apps for instant use: comproso/app and comproso/laboratory. Visit https://comproso.org/itc2016 for further information.
