Assessment
| General | Upon successful completion of your WebCourse, we will email you your certificate. In the framework of your English course, this certificate will generally be counted as an exam prerequisite. In other cases, it might serve as a valid attest or as a condition for the allocation of credit points.
In order to successfully complete your WebCourse you must have
Your overall result is calculated from your performance in the five categories of listening comprehension, writing/spelling, reading comprehension, grammar and terminology. Do not worry, however, since not all tasks are graded. Nearly half of the assignments presented in the units will not be counted in your final score. This includes, for example, such exercises as
You may attempt each individual task four times. It is advisable that you work through and complete each unit on your initial try. For your further attempts in the unit, you can then concentrate on those problem tasks that were most difficult for you the first time around, so as to reach a better result. Only the best of your tries per task is counted for the final result. |
| Recommended Time Limit | For many exercises, a suggested time limit is given, and a counter begins timing when you start working on the exercise. This time limit roughly corresponds to the allowed time for a similar task under exam conditions. Since your WebCourse is not designated as an exam program, but rather an instructional program, these time limits are purely for your information. This means, you can continue working on the exercise as long as you wish, even after the counter time has expired. The A/V presentations for listening comprehension can also be heard or viewed as often as you wish while you are solving the accompanying assignments.
Please note, however, that the system will log you out automatically as soon as it cannot log any measurable activity from your part for longer than two hours. This is one of the measures we have taken to prevent your data from being corrupted. On the other hand, this may result in the registration of intermediate instead of would-be better final percentage results if you make a longer pause and don't touch your keyboard or mouse during the processing time of a task. Don't worry if this should happen to you. Remember, you can repeat each single task. |
| Check Answers | Generally, you will be allowed to check your answers only on having entered an answer for every question. For some tasks, a certain percentage of answers will do.
In the results analysis, your correct answers are highlighted green while the incorrect or missing answers are highlighted red. Suggestions for solutions, corrections, comments and notes are in yellow. You will continually be asked to thoroughly analyse mistakes, and thereby learn from them. You should restudy the main texts and consult various dictionaries and grammar materials. As a rule, you will also receive detailed results appraisals, both for your errors and your correct answers. Note that, for didactic reasons, it is not possible to repeat a task directly after the results are shown. The desired intention is for you to learn rather than simply train your short-term memory skills. This way, you will be encouraged to apply appropriate learning strategies. Each unit should first be completely worked through and finished. To be on the safe side, plan a minimum of two hours for this. Repetitions of tasks are only allowed in subsequent sessions. You can then concentrate on the problems which you found difficult the first time around, in order to reach your minimum target score of 75 per cent. |
| Task & Unit Results | Every assignment which requires you to enter an answer is then concluded with a grading assessment. At this point, your correct and incorrect answers are highlighted and commented upon. Also, you receive a printout of your performance standing for the various tasks as well as for the units.
Since you may repeat each task in a unit up to four times, you can improve your results in the course of the learning process. All partial results will be registered in myWebCourse, your personal learner diary. The best of the four possible tries for each Task is calculated in your total score. Further important information regarding the evaluation of your results can be found under Assessment - General. |
| myWebCourse | myWebCourse is the hub of all those tasks of your WebCourse the successful completion of which is crucial for the final assessment of your achievement and thus for your e-Xplore Technical English certificate. MyWebCourse has been designed as an interactive table of contents, which will gradually evolve into a comprehensive personal learner diary during the course of your studies. There are always general as well as very detailed surveys of the current status of your work in tabular form at your fingertips (cf. myProgressReport, units, tests, terminology trainer, instructions). Integrated didactic regulatory procedures will always guide your learning process depending on your personal study patterns and intermediate results. |
| Grading | On successful completion of your WebCourse, you can earn a grade, which complies with the German university grading system, if this feature applies for your study group.
University boards of examiners consider this grade a prerequisite for the awarding of ECTS credits for study achievements in Bachelor and Master courses of study, notably if the WebCourse is not an integrated part of a more comprehensive course module. The board of examiners responsible for your degree course of study may award your WebCourse certificates with 2.0, 2.5 or 3.0 ECTS credits, depending on the studies and examinations regulations applicable for your course of study. WebCourses are primarily designed as learning programs, which measure and record individual learning progress. Testing is only a secondary purpose. This means you may repeat most exercises and tasks according to your own learning path and may expect adequately tiered support and solution keys. For these reasons, the grade calculation (in contrast to the calculation of percentage-based results!) for the individual results in repeated tasks is weighted, taking into consideration such factors as the use of support and solution keys. Your grade will reflect your overall result percentage in most cases. In certain cases, however, where a successful overall result percentage (75 per cent and above) has been achieved mainly by means of repeated attempts of tasks and the usage of support and solution keys, your grade may be lower than could be expected when only considering the percentage-based overall result by itself. Thus, depending on your individual learning path, even rather successful percentage-based overall results could be evaluated with a relatively low grade. In cases of learning path-related results equivalent to a grade 5 (fail) in the German university grading system, even percentage-based results of 75 per cent and above will not be awarded a grade, and consequently will usually not qualify for ECTS credits. |
| Certificate | Subject to the condition that you have reached all course aims, we will email you your personal certificate as soon as your group membership in your WebCourse expires. If you need to get your certificate early, just terminate your group membership and you will receive it immediately (cf. general instructions).
In addition to your personal data, your certificate will include
- listening comprehension, - writing/spelling, - reading comprehension, - grammar and - terminology,
This certificate may count as a valid attest or as a criterion for credit points. Within the framework of your English course at university, it will serve as one of the exam prerequisites in many cases. |