2025 Award Finalists Best Summative Assessment Project
The Best Summative Assessment Project Award recognizes e-assessment projects that have made significant improvements to summative assessment practices.
Read on for more information on the 2025 finalists in this Award category at the 2025 International e-Assessment Awards.
Arden University in Partnership with Tomax with Scaling Secure Digital Exams Globally: Arden University’s Transformation
Project Summary
Arden University, a digital-first institution with 27,000 students across 32 countries, faced a significant challenge: meeting Professional, Statutory, and Regulatory Body (PSRB) requirements to return to invigilated exams while maintaining a flexible, accessible experience for students worldwide. The university had just nine months to develop a sustainable, scalable solution or revert to costly, logistically complex in-person exams that would disadvantage many students.
This project ensured that Arden University could deliver secure, high-quality assessments across different time zones without creating barriers for students juggling work, family, or other commitments. Aligning with its mission to ensure geographical constraints and personal and professional commitments do not prevent ambitious individuals from pursuing high-quality education, the university designed an approach that supported both remote and in-person assessment globally, providing students with a consistent, fair exam experience regardless of location. A pilot in January 2024 allowed Arden University to refine the process based on real student and staff feedback, leading to a full rollout in April 2024, covering all examined modules
The immediate impact:
• Students could sit exams without travel constraints.
• Staff benefited from streamlined processes.
• The university ensured compliance with PSRB standards while reinforcing its commitment to digital-first, accessible education.
Commenting on being a finalist, Arden University said, “We’re delighted to be named a finalist in the 2025 e-Assessment Awards. At Arden University, we’re committed to delivering high-quality, accessible education that supports learners regardless of their personal circumstances. Our digital invigilated exam model is a key part of that mission.
Rather than reverting to traditional in-person exams post-COVID, we took the opportunity to embed a fully online approach—enabling students in over 32 countries to sit secure, flexible exams that meet the rigorous standards of professional bodies.
A vital part of this success has been our close collaboration with our technology partner Tomax, whose platform supports a resilient, user-friendly assessment experience. Together, we’ve built a model that balances security and academic integrity with fairness and accessibility—addressing challenges such as digital poverty and the complexities of global delivery.
What sets our approach apart is its focus on equity. While most students take exams remotely, we also offer the same digital experience at our study centres for those without reliable internet access. This hybrid model ensures no student is disadvantaged due to their location or personal circumstances.
Since launching the model, we’ve seen clear benefits: improved submission and attendance rates, significantly reduced delivery costs, and stronger student engagement.
Being selected as a finalist is a proud moment for our teams, and recognition of what can be achieved through thoughtful design, a student-first mindset, and strong partnerships between institutions and technology providers.”
The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) and PSI Services with Embedding ED&I into music theory assessments
Project Summary
The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) is an international music education charity. With a candidate population across nearly 100 countries, the delivery of ABRSM music theory exams has a global impact. Equity, diversity and inclusion (ED&I) considerations are a critical focus – to both meet the needs of a diverse candidate population and ensure the future success of the charity. ABRSM partnered with PSI to move from paper-based music theory exams in a traditional exam hall setting to computer-based exams using record and review online proctoring. To ensure the ongoing success of this significant assessment transformation project, it was critical for both organisations to be aligned in their intention to place diverse candidates at the centre of the new approach and deliver accessible assessments globally.
Commenting on being a finalist, The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music said, “Being shortlisted as a finalist for this award is a meaningful moment for ABRSM. It recognises the work we’ve undertaken to embed equity, diversity, and inclusion into our music theory assessments and reaffirms our commitment to creating opportunities for learners everywhere to develop their musical skills and understanding.
This recognition supports our broader mission: to make music education more accessible, inclusive, and inspiring for as many people as possible. It’s a proud milestone on our journey to remove barriers, expand reach, and ensure that assessments reflect the diverse needs of today’s learners.
This achievement would not have been possible without the dedication and vision of the ABRSM team, as well as the long-term valuable collaboration with our testing partner, PSI, and the many stakeholders around the world who have helped us shape and refine the programme. Their input – from educators and parents to young learners themselves – helped ensure the final assessments are not only robust and scalable, but fair and inclusive by design.
In a competitive and evolving global education landscape, being shortlisted also helps build credibility and visibility for our e-assessment work, contributing to the continued success of the music education charity and our ability to support future generations of music learners and teachers.
We’re grateful for the opportunity to share our story alongside such inspiring peers within the assessment and testing industry. Regardless of the final outcome, being shortlisted is already a win. It offers an opportunity to reflect on our journey, to celebrate the milestones we’ve achieved so far, and to look ahead with renewed energy and ambition so that we keep listening, keep innovating, and keep championing fairness in assessment. We’re incredibly grateful to the eAA and the wider e-assessment community for this recognition and excited about the future of e-assessment. ”
Excelsoft Technologies and the Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board with Modernizing Summative Assessments: SEAB’s Scalable and Inclusive Transformation
Project Summary
The Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board (SEAB), under the Ministry of Education, serves as a trusted authority overseeing national and non-national examinations across 400 schools. Committed to maintaining educational performance standards and advancing Singapore’s vision as a global education hub, SEAB operates with a mission to support diverse learner needs and leave no candidate behind. To fulfill this mission and address limitations of its legacy systems, SEAB undertook a large-scale transformation to modernize its examination delivery infrastructure.
Previously, SEAB utilized thick-client systems deployed across schools. This required local software installations on individual machines for every test, resulting in enormous man-efforts, high maintenance costs, dependency on hardware, and limited scalability. Additionally, lack of data redundancy and offline capabilities created vulnerabilities in locations with restricted or unstable internet connectivity.
To address these challenges, SEAB transitioned to a centralized, web-based platform hosted in the secure Government Cloud. This transformation enhanced scalability, supporting 80,000 annual registrations and 25,000 concurrent users while enabling rapid expansion to new test centers without complex infrastructure investments. SEAB’s assessments grew to include coursework, oral assessment, assessment using multi-media interactive items, and more. Multi-layer redundancy and offline capabilities ensured seamless exam delivery, reinforcing SEAB’s mission of leaving no candidate behind.
Commenting on being a finalist, Excelsoft said, “Being shortlisted for the e‑Assessment Awards 2025 is a milestone for Excelsoft and our partner, the Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board (SEAB). Competition for eAA awards is intense and global; reaching the final stage signals that our project ranks among the year’s most impactful assessment innovations.
For Excelsoft, the recognition aligns with our vision to make assessment smarter, fairer and universally accessible. It boosts stakeholder confidence, energises our roadmap for AI‑driven analytics and underscores our commitment to inclusive design.
This milestone also honours every contributor: SEAB’s visionary leaders, educators, IT teams, and our product specialists and implementation teams whose insights shaped a platform capable of delivering coursework, oral components and media‑rich interactive items, transforming complex national‑level requirements into a seamless, future‑ready solution.
We are grateful to SEAB for its trust and to the award jury for acknowledging the project’s impact. The shortlisting motivates us to push boundaries further—ensuring every candidate, regardless of context or connectivity, can demonstrate true potential through transparent, reliable and inclusive assessments.”
Oxford University Press with Oxford Test of English Advanced
Project Summary
Oxford University Press (OUP) is a division of the University of Oxford and our mission is to further the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Assessment forms a key part of the learning proposition and learning outcomes are supported throughout the learning cycle with placement, progress, and proficiency assessment solutions.
Oxford Test of English Advanced (OTE Advanced) is the latest addition to our suite of English language proficiency tests, expanding the portfolio offer to CEFR B2–C1. The test features tasks specifically designed to reflect real-life scenarios and linguistic demands encountered in academic and professional domains, meeting the expectations of admissions officers in higher education as well as employers. Prof. Paul Irwin Crookes (Director of Graduate Studies at University of Oxford) commented that “the academic orientation of the Oxford Test of English Advanced and the way its activities combine skills will help ensure that international students are fully able to engage with our courses”.
Since its launch in April 2024, the test has been trusted by thousands of learners of English and has opened doors for opportunities in higher education, enrolment into international programmes, and for employment and migration.
Commenting on being a finalist, Oxford University Press said, “We are incredibly proud to have been shortlisted for this award; it is a powerful recognition of the vision, innovation, and collaboration that went into developing the Oxford Test of English Advanced. This project marks a major milestone for us as an organisation, as we continue to grow our presence in the global English language assessment space.
Being recognised at this level reinforces our belief in the importance of accessible, high-quality assessment solutions that support learners in achieving their goals, whether that’s studying abroad, entering the world of work, or starting a new life in a different country. OTE Advanced was designed to meet these real-world needs with rigour, fairness, and flexibility at its core. This recognition is also a reflection of the extraordinary effort and commitment of the assessment team in OUP, our colleagues around the world who helped bring the product to market, and our technology partner – all these people helped make the project a success and it truly has been a collective, team achievement.
As a department of the University of Oxford, we are guided in everything we do by our mission; we re-invest in our publishing and our assessment to have a positive impact on our international community of English language learners. For us, being shortlisted is not only a celebration of what we have already accomplished, but also a motivator for what’s next. It supports our ambition to scale impact through innovation, to build trust with new partners and institutions, and to continue delivering assessment solutions that are relevant, reliable, and genuinely life-changing for test takers.
We are grateful for the opportunity to share our work through the eAA awards and inspired by the other finalists who are shaping the future of e-assessment in meaningful ways.”
For more information on all finalists in the 2025 International e-Assessment Awards, visit our finalists webpage.
