By Angela Harrison BBC News Online education staff

Results at the touch of a button?

A pilot scheme among 14-year-olds will be used as a test bed for other online exams of the future.

The project is being run by England's exams watchdog, the QCA (Qualifications and Curriculum Authority).

It is one of a number of e-test trials taking place across the UK.

The QCA-run initiative involves - appropriately enough - an information and communication technology test to be taken by 14-year-olds in 81 schools.

In 2005 the project will go national, with all secondary schools in England taking part.

The tests will be marked instantly and automatically, although they will be double-checked by a human.

Technically, it will be possible to let pupils know their results instantly but part of the pilot's aim is to look at whether students, teacher and parents think that is a good idea.

Vision

Martin Ripley, head of assessment policy and development programme at the QCA, says it is a very exciting time.

"It will be the first time that a test will be rolled out on that scale and we will build on that so that it goes beyond a test-bed.

It will be the first time that a test will be rolled out on that scale and we will build on that so that it goes beyond a test-bed Martin Ripley QCA

"Its purpose is to let us put in place our vision of e-assessment."

Others are involved in devising and refining online exams.

The exam board Edexcel began pilots in 2000 and has been involved in trials in Northern Ireland with the exams watchdog there, the CCEA.

It is now carrying out a pilot scheme for online GCSEs in chemistry, biology, physics and geography with 200 schools and colleges across the West Midlands and the west of England.

The GCSE project is being expanded internationally with a pilot running in Brussels this year.

The days of paper exams could be numbered

Edexcel spokeswoman Stevie Pattison-Dick says e-exams seem natural to today's students.

"The students love it. They are a generation for whom computers are a part of everyday life so taking exams online is a natural progression," she said.

She says the prospect of instant results is likely in the future for some subjects - but not all.

"With subjects where you have longer answers and essays rather than multiple choice or single responses, you need someone to analyse it and mark in the traditional way."

The QCA is also involved with a pilot scheme at Highdown Prison, where officials want candidates to be given an instant print-out and test score.

Less paperwork

Both Edexcel and the QCA agree there could be many benefits from e-assessment - not least a cut in bureaucracy and costs.

The QCA's Martin Ripley said: "It would be a lot less bureaucratic, not having to shift exam papers around the country and it would be cheaper.

"It could also be more straightforward and informative for the child. They could receive not only their own result but see how other people did, so assessment can be used to help."

Officials at the watchdog are excited by the idea that e-assessment could help the exam system to be more flexible - exams would not have to be taken at set times in the year.

"Students could take the tests when they and their teachers think they are ready," said Mr Ripley.

He is not worried by the prospect of putting a child's exam results in the hands of a computer.

"Parents and children should be reassured, humans will be around for a couple of years to look at the accuracy of the computer-marking," he said.

And he pointed to an online international graduate management aptitude test used in the USA and half a dozen centres in the UK.

"If it's good enough for Harvard it should be good enough for most other parents," he said.

Both the QCA and Edexcel maintain that Britain is at the cutting edge of on-line exams and say that that representatives from other countries are visiting the UK to see what is happening here.

"In most of these areas we lead the world and where we don't, we will seek to lead the world," Martin Ripley said.