A system designed to support formative assessment of open-ended written assignments

This paper introduces the MarkTool System - a software system designed to support formative assessment of open-ended written assignments. The MarkTool System brings together services from conventional learning management systems, a marking application and other specialized tools to facilitate the formative assessment of open-ended written assignments. MarkTool System uses the services provided by the university´s learning management system for assignment submission and returning of the marked assignments. It provides an onscreen marking tool which allows users to mark open-ended written assignments using their paper-based assessment skills. MarkTool System also supports the concepts of self-assessment and peer-assessment, assessment related discussion, quality/consistency control of feedback, and analysis of assessment results.