9:00 – 9:30	On-site registration
9:30 – 10:00	Opening ceremony HE Prof Hassan Mneimneh Minister of Education and Higher Education of Lebanon Mr Habib Sayegh CEO of Educational Research Center (ERC)
10:00 – 10:45	Dr Hans Wagemaker Executive Director of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) International Assessments and Educational Policy: IEA’s Assessment Strategy
10:45 – 11:30	Prof Ibrahim Halloun Professor of Physics and Education at Lebanese University International Arab Baccalaureate and Authentic Electronic Assessment
11:30 – 12:00	Coffee break
12:00 – 12:45	Prof Bill Boyle Chair of Educational Assessment and Director of CFAS at the University of Manchester The Contribution of e-Assessment to Formative Feedback and Deep Learning
12:45 – 13:15	Mr Robert Fogel Intel Principal Education Architect Asynchronous e-Assessments
13:15 – 14:30	Lunch
14:30 – 15:00	HH Dr Faisal Mashary Al-Saud General Manager of KSA National Center for Assessment in Higher Education Item Bank System Development: The Experience of the National Center for Assessment in Higher Education, KSA
15:00 – 15:30	Mr Gerard Smyth SkooolTM Programme Manager Digital Education Usage Models to Deliver 21st Century Skills
15:30 – 16:00	Mr Tony Tohme Director, Educational Research Center (ERC) IAB Electronic Platform: Authentic Assessments for Profile Shaping Education
16:00 – 16:45	Round Table Discussions
16:45 – 17:00	Closing ceremony

Under the patronage of
H. E. Prof. Hassan Mneimneh
Minister of Education and Higher Education of Lebanon

Annual Conference of Educational Research Center on
Educational Measurement
March 27, 2010

Educational Research Center (ERC) will hold its annual conference on educational measurement on March 27, 2010, under the theme:

Electronic assessment platforms for meaningful learning
The conference will address the following issues:
1. What are electronic assessment platforms, and what functions do they serve in education?
2. How such platforms are deployed in the construction of item banks, and what are these banks good for?
3. How do electronic platforms and item banks contribute to authentic assessment and meaningful learning?
4. What factors govern the efficiency of platforms and banks?

The conference will be held at Le Royal hotel in Dbayeh, Lebanon. Plenary sessions will be held the morning of Saturday March 27, 2010. Keynote speakers include renowned international and Arab guests whose work about the theme of the conference is highly recognized worldwide. Among those:

• Dr. Hans Wagemaker, Executive Director of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), who will deliver the paper: International Assessments and Educational Policy: IEA's Assessment Strategy

• Prof. Bill Boyle, Chair of Educational Assessment and Director of CFAS at the University of Manchester, who will deliver the paper: The Contribution of e-Assessment to Formative Feedback and Deep Learning

• Prof. Ibrahim Halloun, Professor of Physics & Education at Lebanese University, who will deliver the paper: International Arab Baccalaureate and Authentic Electronic Assessment

Parallel sessions will be held in the afternoon. Educational measurement experts are invited to contribute 30-minute papers to the sessions, in English or Arabic, around any of the four issues listed above. Contributors are kindly asked to submit the title and abstract of their paper, along with a short biography, by February 20, 2010, to conference@educationalrc.org. The abstract should consist of a 250-word Microsoft Word text in English (Times New Roman, 12 pt), along with an Arabic translation (Simplified Arabic, 12 pt), if possible. Abstracts will be reviewed, and authors notified about the outcome by February 27, 2010. Preference will be given to papers that pertain to research conducted by the author(s), with clear implications to classroom practice.

Dr. Hans Wagemaker Hans Wagemaker is the executive director of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational achievement, a position he has held since 1997.  As such, he is responsible for the management of IEA international research projects including the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and Progress in Reading literacy (PIRLS), two of IEA’s primary international assessment programs; a Secretariat in Amsterdam, and a large data processing and research center in Hamburg, Germany. Dr Wagemaker has overseen the development of IEA’s activities in the area of training and capacity building in low-middle income countries and the development of IEA’s educational consultancy services.
Dr Wagemaker had represented New Zealand’s interests in the APEC Education Forum, UNESCO’s commissions, and the OECD, CERI and Education Governing Board. He has consulted for the Inter American Development Bank and UNESCO, and has worked extensively with the World Bank to advance a common interest in the uses of assessment for improving educational systems in developing countries.
Prof. Bill Boyle Prof. William F. Boyle is Chair of Educational Assessment and Director of the Centre for Formative Assessment Studies (CFAS) at the University of Manchester, UK. For the last 20 years, Prof. Boyle has been involved in national and international research and development into assessment, and its integration with the curriculum and teaching and learning. He has been funded to support assessment developments from classroom to Ministry level in a range of countries by UNESCO, The World Bank, Asian Development Bank and the Department for International Development, and is currently on the Expert Council of the World Bank's “Russian Education Aid for Development” programme.
Prof. Ibrahim A. Halloun Ibrahim A. Halloun is tenured Professor of Physics and Education at Lebanese University (LU). In 1984, he earned a PhD in Physics from Arizona State University, with a dissertation on modeling in Newtonian mechanics. He then joined LU, and held joint appointments at many institutions in Lebanon and abroad, including Arizona State University and UNESCO-Paris. Through classroom-based research, and in collaboration with many researchers and educators around the world, Prof. Halloun has developed, among others, the following:
Modeling Theory in science education: a pedagogical theory grounded in cognitive science and the philosophy of science. Profile Shaping Education (PSE): an educational framework developed under the auspices of Educational Research Center (ERC). The framework is being deployed, at ERC, in the development of: (a) educational curricula, (b) authentic assessment tools and programs including the International Arab Baccalaureate (IAB) and the Student Profile Assessment (SPA), and (c) professional development programs for in-service and pre-service teachers in all fields and at all grade levels.

Dr. Hans Wagemaker
International Assessments and Educational Policy: IEA’s Assessment Strategy

The presentation will focus on why a strategic approach to system level evaluation of student outcomes is necessary for both developed and developing economies. I will outline IEA’s assessment strategy to provide information on student achievement, and an overview of how the design of IEA’s large scale assessments (TIMSS and PIRLS) and the information generated by them are designed to inform educational policy reform and improvement.
The presentation will emphasise both the collaborative nature of the assessments and their role in national capacity building, and suggest some strategies for maximising the impact of these assessments.

Prof. Bill Boyle
Contribution of e-Assessment to Formative Feedback and Deep Learning

Formative assessment has its raison d'être in the belief that teaching, learning and assessment are integral. Assessment has to identify where individual learners are located in their learning, and that information has to be used to support movement in those learners. Otherwise this is not formative assessment.
Perrenoud states that “pupils do not have the same abilities nor the same needs, nor the same way of working, so that an optimal situation for one pupil will not be optimal for another”. He suggests a simple equation:
“diversity in people + appropriate treatment for each = diversity in approach”.
Does e-assessment contribute to that formative pedagogy in the classroom?

Prof. Ibrahim A. Halloun

International Arab Baccalaureate and Authentic Electronic Assessment