The following papers stood out for me at the conference.
Visualising the holistic assessment experience – The use of Google tools to support effective design. Mark Kerrigan, Rita Headington, Simon Walker
This presentation demonstrated a development using google forms that tracked the assessment diet landscape, and illustrated assessment bloating, either too many assessments at the same time or too much of the same assessment. The reports provided
"displays assessment diet, landscape and importantly an experiential timeline. The timeline, based on a Google Motion Chart, interactively displays assessment periods, type and weighting concurrently for each course within a programme. Staff are then able to interact with the assessment parts of their programmes and see graphically, in real-time, the consequences of their design decisions. By linking this process to the face-to-face curriculum design workshops, staff are better informed about their programme’s design, thus permitting the evidential-based development of a supportive holistic curriculum that is aligned to both the staff and student experience and good assessment practice." (Kerrigan et. al 2011)
Managing Change in the Development of Sustainable Online Assessment PracticesAnn Liggett, Christopher Cramphorn
I should give this presentation a shout as it was from colleagues at NTU, and they did us proud. It provided an excellent overview with respect to the issues identified during piloting e-submission and e-marking. It clearly identified the processes and the roles and responsibilities of colleagues within the processes, as well as, providing an overview of the evaluation process. Again this presentation emphasised the importance of admin staff in the process. It, also, with respect to emarking, stated that the amount of time it takes to mark reduces with practice. The majority of students were in favour of esubmission, because it meant they did not have to queue, regarding e-marking they found the comments easier to understand/read than written comments. The presentation, also, noted that external examiners need to training in e-marking and that anonymising papers still posed a challenge.
Using Asynchronous Video and Mobile Technologies to Enhance Learner Engagement with Formative FeedbackJames McDowell
This presentation provided an overview of the project VERiFy which aimed to go beyond transmissional approaches to assessment feedback by introducing a conversational framework and using video "feedback loop system"
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'has enabled the asynchronous exchange of video-feedback, facilitating a feed-forward conversation between learners and tutors around work-in-progress; a series of case-studies explores the learner and tutor experience of the intervention.' (McDowell 2011)
The project has also produced a repository of feedback objects, which provides another avenue for reusable objects. I was wondering in the next round of OER if any projects will focus on open assessment objects.
eSubmission – UK policies, practice and supportBarbara Newland, Lindsey Martin, Andy Ramsden
This presentation provided an overview of the Heads of Elearning eSubmission survey. It found the following
'Only 21% of institutions have an institution-wide policy on eSubmission with 18% have separate regulations and 24% included in existing regulations. The most common technologies used are Turnitin integrated within the VLE or the institutional VLE rather than “home-grown” technologies. Academic attitudes to eSubmission are more positive than those for eMarking and eFeedback. The variety of staff development includes 82% face to face and 82% how-to-guides with 58% providing online video/screencasts. Examples of good practice were identified as well as a range of issues...Effective eSubmission has the potential to increase efficiency in organisations by improving their business processes and eFeedback may enhance learning. The survey outcomes, sample guidelines and examples of good practice can inform institutional adoption and changes in policy and practice. (Newland et. al 2011)'
It was interesting to see that the majority of institutions surveyed did not have an institutional policy for e-submission.
Squaring the Triangle: Institutional Compliance, Academic Freedom and the Student VoiceAlice Bird
This presentation discussed students increasing involvement of students in policy at Liverpool John Moores University. LJMU have, also, piloted e-submission and have found that you cannot ignore marking and feedback when looking at esubmission. The presentation, stated that one challenge is that although institutions want e-submission not enough resources are being put into it.
