Many of the most important innovations in assessment are being made possible through the deployment of technology. As well as the opportunities this represents, it brings challenges for assessment bodies for whom long term success will be determined in part by their competence in this area. Success will in part be determined by an organisation’s ability to deploy the right technical systems for candidate registration, item authoring, test delivery, marking and results distribution and analysis. It is also critical that such systems are flexible and do not constrain the assessment organisation in the longer term as requirements evolve and change. This paper summarises the issues facing many exam boards working with legacy IT systems. Drawing on current projects, it sets out a strategic view of where assessment technology is heading and what flexible, component based assessment technology may look like, and how this approach will support more flexible and informative assessment. It puts these developments in the context of wider work underway in the UK and US in relation to data exchange between educational IT systems, which points towards the emergence of an integration approach.

The paper will draw on real projects and will be accessible to the non technical and technical audience.