How was BOFA 11 plus, Baines Online Formative Assessment, created?
Having sourced qualified, experienced, specialist authors to produce the questions and answers, I was fortunate to find Coherent Development to actually do the programming. One of the main design constraints was simplicity. Because the process of Formative Assessment is so complex, it meant that the algorithm for the test would need to be as simple as possible in order to make the online platform usable. It was important to ensure that the BOFA user was only dealing with one task at a time as it was to be used by children and adults alike. After many months work the algorithm was complete and the code writing was underway. It then took another 18 months to get this all together before the beta testing (actually trying out the product before sale). The site went live on 21st July 2008 on www.planetbofa.com and then was transfered over to www.bofa11plus.com on 1st October 2008. Further development has been done since the launch along with a few tweaks and an upgraded version was launched
