YAPS -- Your Open Examination System for Activating and emPowering Students

Abstract: There are numerous e-assessment systems devoted to specific domains under diverse license models. Cost, extensibility, and maintainability are relevant issues for an institution. Ease of use and inclusion into courses are educator's main concerns. For students the user experience and fast transparent feedback plus "better" tests are most important. Many exams still focus on testing memorized knowledge, instead of improving and testing skills with competence-oriented learning support and examinations, respectively. We discuss design decisions and present the resulting architecture of YAPS - Your open Assessment system for emPowering Students. YAPS has been used for very diverse lectures in logistics, computer engineering, and algorithms for exams, but also for empowering students by fast feedback during the learning period. We report on results in a basic lecture on Computer Science for Mechanical Engineers.