# Introduction

Universities, departments, and individual faculty members are interested in the knowledge of their students.  While methods to measure knowledge using exams are established, measuring knowledge using artifacts graded with a rubric can be difficult.  Recently, [Smith and Wooten (2023)](https://doi.org/10.1002/soej.12658) established a method to estimate rubric row difficulty and proxies for student knowledge.  This online application performs this estimation using data provided by the user.  This tool can be used to help diagnose misaligned rubric rows, examine proxies of knowledge of the students, and detect changes in knowledge among student groups.  This can be used by an [individual faculty member diagnosing issues in their class](https://docs.projectassessment.app/why-and-example-uses#using-project-based-assessment-for-instructional-improvement-and-portfolios), to perform [university assessment](https://docs.projectassessment.app/why-and-example-uses#using-project-based-assessment-for-academic-assessment) (e.g., for accreditation), or in [education research](https://docs.projectassessment.app/why-and-example-uses#using-project-based-assessment-for-research) (e.g., determining the effectiveness of an intervention); these use cases are discussed in the "[Why and Example Uses](https://docs.projectassessment.app/why-and-example-uses)" section. Below you will find a short introductory video:

{% embed url="<https://vimeo.com/822300502>" %}


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# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://docs.projectassessment.app/introduction.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.