Item Banking

Traditionally, the task of preparing and maintaining assessment items for any institution of learning has been tedious and laborious. This is particularly true for institutions with a large student population. When the concept of item banking was first introduced, it generally referred to a database that facilitates the storage of a large number of assessment items to enable easy selection and retrieval. Little emphasis was placed on [Page 892]the process of test automation and item quality control. With the rapid advancement of computer technology, the notion of item banking has evolved from a test item storage system to a more advanced test management system. Besides the capability to store a large quantity of assessment items and their associated information systematically, an item bank also serves ...