Podcasts

Find your way around e-Assessment

21 February 2008

Evaluating students’ knowledge through online assessment provides insight into what they know and how they can develop their understanding. While students adapt to this new approach quickly, engaging often ‘time poor’ academic staff in unfamiliar practices is more challenging.

As reflected in the QAA Overview report and feedback from the National Student Survey 2007, assessment and feedback is an area where staff value additional support in easily accessible forms. A new podcast explores the issue of assessment and introduces some examples of the wealth of available information on an area of increasing importance to the sector.

Examples of such guidance include Jisc infoNet’s infoKit on Effective Use of Virtual Learning Environments which introduces a variety of the techniques and types of system available. The infoKit guides the reader through selection of an appropriate system and good practice in construction and use of instruments for a variety of disciplines and assessment purposes. Access is provided to materials appropriate to those already familiar with assessment techniques and the relevant IT as well as those new to the field.

As Jacquie Kelly, senior adviser at Jisc infoNet, explains on the podcast: "The National Student Survey has served to highlight the importance of timely and meaningful feedback to students. e-Assessment can play an important role in this process and our infoKit provides a 'first port of call' giving advice and guidance for managers, tutors and support staff."

Another resource, the 'Accessibility in e-Assessment Checklist Game' provides an opportunity to review online assessments for some basic accessibility considerations prior to implementation and revise as necessary based on feedback. TechDis produced the Accessibility in e-Assessment Guidelines Report to reduce the incidence of requests for special considerations by raising inclusivity and awareness of accessibility requirements at every stage in the production of examinations and assessments.

Simon Ball, senior adviser at TechDis, says that the vast majority of inclusivity considerations are "simply good practice. By using the 'Accessibility in e-Assessment Game' as a starting point they may be able to build in a lot of access considerations without thinking of it as a separate agenda. The Guidelines Report will be of interest to staff involved in parts of the e-Assessment process other than teaching - i.e. question design, software design and so on."

Jisc iPAS provides a rich blend of online support materials with advice and guidance to help institutions deal with cut-and-paste Internet plagiarism issues in assessed work. Turnitin, the online tool for verifying coursework authenticity, is endorsed by Jisc. This identifies the heritage of a document from a vast database of stored content (past student papers, internet pages and journal materials) and can be used at the formative and summative stages of assessment. The tool has proved to be a catalyst for generating a tangible dialogue between academic staff and students about the whole process of choosing, reasoning about and attributing sources. It also offers a deterrent to the small minority of students engaging in deliberate plagiarism.

Turnitin is complemented by Grade Mark, an online assessment statement bank marking tool, free to Turnitin UK users, providing unlimited storage of student papers and enabling a department and/or tutor to produce a bank of feedback questions. Papers are uploaded by students to the online service enabling staff to mark work anywhere they can get access to a browser. Feedback is added to essays and linked to statement banks providing students with rich feedback and tutors with statistical information about common problems.

The Jisc iPAS website has videos, tip sheets, FAQs and case studies is available for staff and student users who are welcome to join an online mailing list discussion forum at www.jiscmail.ac.uk/plagiarism.

Will Murray of JisciPAS says: "We are delighted with the uptake of the solutions we offer in e-assessment. The fact that so many institutions are using common solutions is allowing a real community of practice to support and influence future technology development."