If you are going to design and develop more than just a few objective / MCQ style tests in your college VLE, you should consider investing in software tools that work outside of your standard college VLE systems. This is because of the freedom and flexibility they bring and the ability to manage your assessments independently, using tools like Respondus or Question Mark Perception. It is possible to buy them on a campus-wide licence integration for VLEs like Moodle and Blackboard, or as a single user licences. Respondus also comes as a standalone version for authoring and is useful for converting between different delivery platform formats and electronic question standards. This is particularly useful for importing and editing e-assessment questions supplied with textbooks, which is a great way of quickly developing a question bank (see later section on question banks). A major benefit of a tool like this is that you will be able to take your e-assessment questions with you if you change employers and be able to convert them into any format. This all might seem a bit overwhelming at first, so it makes really good sense to involve your college learning technology / IT support department in this process for help.

Hot Potatoes is long standing and popular freeware quiz authoring tool that operates on a computer and generates web-based content and quiz assessments. Hot potatoes can export its content as SCORM packages, which can be imported by most VLEs. There is a Hot Potatoes plugin for Moodle that allows a user to upload a Hot Potatoe test directly into a Moodle course. It does not have the range of format conversions of the other tools but it is free and widely used.

Xerte is a free and open source content creation tool that enables non-technical users to produce rich interactive web content, including quizzes and tests. It was originally developed by the University of Nottingham and received additional support from Jisc. It follows the ‘learning object’ philosophy and produces content that can be exported in SCORM format that can be used in VLEs. It can also be integrated with Moodle to provide a local online server installation accessed through Moodle. The Chesterfield College group have produced a useful set of introductory resources about using Xerte in a Moodle college setting.