Tri-party e-assessment and personalised learning
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This project examined the use of online assessment with groups of students in a Further Education College where the employer is part of the learning contract.
Executive Summary
The aims of the project were to establish how online teaching and learning and particularly online assessment can be implemented to support personalised learning, more effective teaching and employer visibility of college activities to bridge the gap between work and college.
The project ran in two phases over the academic years 2007/08 and 2008/09. The first phase looked at using an existing Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) to support online submission of summative assignments and the potential that technology could play in supporting personalised learning by looking at submission in a variety of alternative file formats. The project team were particularly interested in the drivers and barriers to these developments.
After the first year it was clear that the main barriers to the use of online assignment submission was the difficulties of online marking for staff and the preference of most students to hand in work directly to tutors. In this first phase it was established also that there are some skills gaps with students who are part of the ‘internet generation’ and although students are initially keen to consider using alternative file formats they are reluctant to ‘risk’ a new format for summative assignments.
Phase two of the project involved establishing employer reporting requirements for their sponsored learners. Derby College has a close working relationship with Rolls-Royce and they were keen to use technology to bridge the gap between work and college for their apprentices. The College set up a hosted VLE which was to be used for all training providers nationally and Rolls Royce included their reporting requirements based on this as part of their service level agreement for all providers.
The VLE is operating but as yet all the employer requirements are yet to be fulfilled. The project team are however continuing to work on these requirements with the support of Derby College and Rolls-Royce.
Our experiences have shown that the vision of an e-enabled course with online assessment, visibility and personalised learning requires a robust platform of both technology, staff development and culture change. All the stakeholders including learners, tutors and employers, enthusiastically engage with the vision. However, organisations need to be aware that in order to succeed this needs to be underpinned with a solid foundation of technology, staff competence and confidence and organisational support. Small issues with any of these elements have a disproportionate negative effect on progress towards these goals.