Assessment takes two basic
forms, based on the point at which the evaluation is performed:
·
Formative evaluation takes place during the development of a
program. It is used to help refocus activities,
revise or fine tune a program, or to validate the success of particular
activities. Formative assessment in an
ETD program may help diagnose whether training sessions are useful to students,
whether the submission process worked efficiently, whether the students learned
about electronic scholarly communication issues, or whether the students find
what they learned in order to produce an ETD helpful in their employment.
·
Summative evaluation is used to examine the program at its completion or
at the end of a stage. Since an ETD
program is ongoing, summative evaluation can be used on an annual basis to
yield statistics that can be compared from year to year.