See also: Transforming Assessment and Feedback

Returns to the National Student Survey show that how they are assessed and given feedback are critical to students' learning and are consistently rated below other aspects of their learning experience. There is increasing evidence that the use of technology, within a principled pedagogic approach to assessment and feedback, can improve satisfaction as well as learning outcomes.

The JISC Curriculum Delivery programme included a number of projects that were directly addressing the use of technology for enhanced assessment and feedback. Many valuable resources can be found on the pages of the ESCAPE and Making Assessment Count projects. Nearly all projects had some activity relating to feedback and assessment which reflects the importance of this in engaging students and enhancing their learning experience. Many projects investigated peer feedback and assessment and some utilised technologies to record feedback during learning activities or to add a personal aspect for remote learners.

We are seeing transformative changes to assessment practices in the modules that the ESCAPE team have worked with. There is a much greater emphasis on the application of assessment-for-learning approaches. The pedagogy is supported by the use of appropriate aligned technologies such as; use of student-produced videos, Podcasts, Blogs, electronic submission of coursework, use of StudyNet to support group work and  the use of wikis. (ESCAPE)

Students have highlighted a number of benefits. These include the value of the Making Assessment Count (MAC) process in helping them to clearly identify their approach to coursework assignments (e.g. submitting early, getting a friend or family member to proofread the work, placing the work in the context of the whole course, allowing a realistic amount of time to prepare the work, focusing on the question, making better use of the help (including staff) available to them). (MAC)

Nearly all Curriculum Delivery projects had some activity relating to feedback and assessment which reflects the importance of this in engaging students and enhancing their learning experience. Several projects focussed on the practical systems which support assessment processes such as online submission and assignment handling. The Curriculum Design programme has also been addressing assessment at a more systemic level, with approval processes being redesigned to support reflection on the type and timing of module assessments. However, some projects also have findings on assessment and feedback more directly. Viewpoints (Ulster), PiP (Strathclyde) and Predict (City) continue to embed assessment considerations into their guidance materials and their work with curriculum teams. The T-SPARC project at Birmingham City similarly brought together programme teams and their students to focus on the redesign of assessment, and has trialled – and subsequently introduced to the University of Greenwich – the use of VOXUR units to collect students' ideas about assessment and feedback (scroll to the 'technology' section of the project page).

Curriculum Design projects reflected that curriculum processes need to be flexible enough to allow for innovation in modes of assessment. Peer feedback and review, personalised assessment, and the use of portfolio-type technologies to allow learners to make their own selection for assessment, are all ways that technology can be employed to give a more developmental assessment experience. Assessment regimes are a critical element of curriculum design and there is an increasing trend to plan assessment across a programme or at least a year of study, rather than component modules. Assessment frames the learning experience, and the variety of assessment types need to be made clear to learners from the outset rather than introduced ad hoc in different modules.

Technologies used to enhance assessment and feedback include:

assessment technologies

e-portfolios

capturing learning and teaching activities

Media Enhanced Learning  including podcasting

learning environments

social networks and web 2.0

See also

Assessment processes

Case studies on assessment and feedback

Guides tips and toolkits around assessment and feedback

View all resources tagged:

assessment

feedback