Transcript E-Assessment An Awarding Body Perspective

Professor Daniel Khan OBE
Chief Executive
OCN London
“Assessment is a central feature of teaching and the
curriculum. It powerfully frames how students learn and
what students achieve. It is one of the most significant
influences on students’ experience of higher education
and all that they gain from it.
The reason for an explicit focus on improving assessment
practice is the huge impact it has on the quality of
learning.”
Boud & Associates (2010) Assessment 2020: Seven
propositions for assessment reform in higher education
“Information is at the heart of quality assurance.
Assessment management systems can, if used
effectively, give a full overview of assessment
and enable information to flow through an
institution to improve consistency and fairness.”
Peter Findlay, Assistant Director,
Quality Assurance Agency
Technology-enhanced assessment and feedback refers to
practices that provide some, or all, of the following
benefits:

Greater variety and authenticity in the design of
assessments

Improved learner engagement, for example, through
interactive formative assessments with adaptive
feedback

Choice in the timing and location of assessments

Capture of wider skills and attributes not easily
assessed by other means, eg through simulations,
e-portfolios and interactive games

Efficient submission, marking, moderation and
data storage processes

Consistent, accurate results with opportunities to
combine human and computer marking

Immediate feedback

Increased opportunities for learners to act on
feedback, e.g. by reflection in e-portfolios

Innovative approaches based a round use of
creative media and online peer and self
assessment

Accurate, timely and accessible evidence on the
effectiveness of curriculum design and delivery
Pachler et al. A project report for JISC (2009)

Colleges and Training Providers’ requirements

Efficiency of operations

Cost reduction

Student demand

Flexibility of Assessment Models

Investment costs

Credibility and integrity of qualifications

Culture change for staff

Challenge for vocational skills

Global working

International skills benchmarking

Poverty reduction for developing countries through
internationally recognised skills

Income diversification

Flexibility of delivery in workplace

Whether, and how, to measure student
participation in on-line discussion and activities

How to measure individual performances within
group assignments

Authentication of student work

Preventing and detecting plagiarism

Issues of security

Connecting the assessment to the teaching and
learning intent and strategies
The Australian National Training Authority.
Kendle et al (2000) have proposed 10 criteria to
guide the design and development of effective
qualitative e-assessment tasks:

Assessment tasks should be open-ended

Tasks should have a clear purpose and outcome

Tasks should be authentic in nature

There should be an emphasis on process over
product

Collaboration and communication should
incorporated in tasks

Students should have varying degrees of choice in
the assessment tasks

Tasks should be linked to unit or course objectives

Feedback mechanisms should be included in the
task design

Tasks should encourage the appropriate
discriminatory use of online resources

Tasks should enable students to examine and
present many viewpoints

Engages students with the assessment criteria

Supports personalised learning

Ensures feedback leads to improvement

Focuses on student development

Stimulates dialogue

Considers staff and student effort
“Nothing that we do to, or for, our students is more
important than our assessment of their work and the
feedback we give them on it. The results of our
assessment influence our students for the rest of
their lives and careers – fine if we get it right, but
unthinkable if we get it wrong.”
Race, Brown & Smith (2005) 500 Tips on
Assessment