Assessment Futures
Many students currently graduate without appropriate skills in assessment.
Assessment serves many purposes, including:
• helping students improve their learning, and
• certifying their learning.
This website is about an important additional purpose for assessment.
It is about equipping students for the learning and assessing they will need to do after completing their course and the challenges they will face after graduation.
American Association for Higher Education
ASSESSMENT FORUM
9 Principles of Good Practice for Assessing Student Learning
The assessment of student learning begins with educational values. Assessment is not an end in itself but a vehicle for educational improvement. Its effective practice, then, begins with and enacts a vision of the kinds of learning we most value for students and strive to help them achieve. Educational values should drive not only what we choose to assess but also how we do so. Where questions about educational mission and values are skipped over, assessment threatens to be an exercise in measuring what's easy, rather than a process of improving what we really care about.
Assessment and feedback
Our work on assessment and feedback supports the sector, as we advise on policy and strategy, develop resources, and coordinate a series of activities to identify and share effective practice.
We work with institutions and their students to improve their approaches to assessment and feedback, including setting criteria and emphasising the importance of assessment for learning.
Our Academic Integrity Service exists to raise awareness and enhance understanding of academic integrity issues in higher education, including student plagiarism
We have a range of resources, both generic and subject-specific, on feedback and assessment, which you will find valuable.
The Assessing Learning Project
The Centre for the Study of Higher Education (CSHE) was commissioned by the Australian Universities Teaching Committee to develop the resources on the Assessing Learning in Australian Universities website.
The site is designed to support Australian universities and academic staff in maintaining high quality assessment practices, in particular in responding effectively to new issues in student assessment. The ideas and strategies are focused on the practical educational issues surrounding the purposes and design of student assessment and reporting, in particular the way in which assessment might be planned to optimise student approaches to study.
Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education
Using Social Web (Web 2.0) Activities for Student Assessment: Resources for University Learning and Teaching
About this Wiki
The web2assessmentresources wiki has been developed for university staff who are interested in using the social web (also known as Web 2.0) to assess learning, especially where marks and grades are involved.
The resources in this wiki distil the findings from this project into introductory concepts (section 1), case studies (section 2), checklists (section 3) and further resources (section 4). They can be explored by using the sidebar menu, the tag cloud and the search box, on the left side of each wiki page.
Resources can be downloaded and printed in sections using the "page" tab on each page. The most recent collected edition of these resources can be downloaded as a single PDF: web2assessmentresources_20110923.pdf
Alternatively, a complementary printable version of the resources is available here: ASW2A_ResourcesDocument_Sep22.pdf (Note this document is 1.12 MB)
Abstract
Curriculum mapping is a versatile process tool that can help faculty discern whether different curriculum components align; and if not, what adjustments can be made. Through this process faculty create a graphic portrayal of the program outcomes, the courses that comprise the program, and their relationship to the program's purpose. This article describes both the curriculum mapping process and resulting map, highlighting the versatility of this approach by sharing examples of how it has been used by several academic units.
Abstract
This paper discusses ethics and student assessment, as applicable to the growing field of distance education. In particular, this paper discusses strategies for minimizing academic dishonesty in online student assessment. Among the strategies discussed are acknowledging the disadvantages of online assessment and overcoming them, designing an effective, cheat-proof online assessment, keeping online courses current, and providing students with an academic dishonesty policy.
Welcome to the Search Education Evangelism site.
Why teach search?
Google understands the importance of finding the right information at the right time. We create tools to let you find the information you need, of the kind you need, when you need it. In most cases, a simple search works really well. But for more specialized questions, a bit of instruction in how to search improves all searcher--from middle school students to trained professionals--and lets you discover and use more, higher quality sources than ever before.
Grading Student Achievement in Higher Education : Signals and Shortcomings
by Yorke, Mantz
A lot hangs on the summative grades that students are given. A good degree opens doors which otherwise might remain closed. Yet, as higher education is now a mass rather than an elite system, what is expected of its graduates is different from the expectations of previous generations. Students are expected not only to be able to demonstrate high standards of academic achievement, but also a variety of capabilities that have at different times been given labels such as ‘generic skills’ and ‘transferable skills’. These abilities are …
MarkIT is an Automated Essay Grading System being developed by a research team at the School of Information Systems in the Curtin Business School at Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Western Australia.
Authors:Hall, Richard.
Source:British Journal of Educational Technology; Mar2002, Vol. 33 Issue 2, p149, 10p.
Document Type:Article.
Subject Terms:*EFFECTIVE teaching
*CURRICULUM planning.
Abstract:Biggs has argued that teaching is most effective when it supports those activities appropriate to understanding the curriculum objectives. This paper uses Biggs’ argument to analyse how a UK higher education initiative, the Chic project, has promoted learning and teaching innovation that supports collaborative, inclusive learning by integrating on-line and face-to-face delivery. Methods by which assessments, teaching processes and learning objectives can be aligned are discussed. The author identifies two project approaches to the utilisation of on-line materials within curriculum design. Staff and student questionnaires and interviews are evaluated in order to assess whether these processes promote a reflexive approach to learning. Such reflexivity depends upon stimulating the learner’s emotional involvement and active engagement in undertaking achievable tasks. The paper argues that an integrated approach to on-line learning and teaching can be used to promote students’ critical use, understanding and application of materials. Moreover, it is argued that this can be liberating for staff and students as long as there is a shared vision and experience upon which to act. Promoting motivation within a supportive and meaningful context is fundamental.
Article: Transformative assessment in higher education
Author: Lorenzetti, JP
Journal: Distance education report
ISSN: 1094-320X Date: 2004
Volume: 8 Issue: 6 Start page: 3
On-line assessment
Why consider on-line assessment?
A good deal of investigation and development is underway in Australian universities into the possibilities for effective and efficient on-line and computer-based assessment. The current commercial ‘virtual learning environments’, which integrate various curriculum elements at subject level into a single software portal, usually offer various built-in options for student assessment. As well, many on-line assessment initiatives are being locally developed to suit specific curriculum needs.
Sound assessment begins when you define the content of the assessment (the student standards or goals to be assessed) and the purpose for the assessment. Below are examples of how purpose can affect assessment design:
Herman, Aschbacher, and Winters (1992) suggest ten steps as part of the assessment design process.
It has been accepted that well documented formative feedback for students, especially early on in a course, facilitates their learning. This, of course, is expensive and in recent years in Australia (as around the world) there has been an overall reduction in resources forcing the abandonment of certain learning experiences in order to constrain the costs. This is particularly so in the sciences which traditionally have laboratory classes of several hours per week and with associated written reports and assignments.