e-Assessment promises lecturers and tutors the opportunity to both streamline the assessment process and to allow for greater variety and creativity in testing students. We asked Helen Ashton, an active member of the JISC CETIS Assessment Special Interest Group and a lecturer specialising in the design and development of e-assessment systems, to explore e-assessment from a practitioner's perspective. In this article she looks at each stage of the e-assessment life cycle from what to assess to how to measure student performance. (Abstract by author)