Assessment
Introduction
Empower offers experience and expertise in a range of assessment methodologies for students working in online or blended environments.
Technology-enhanced assessment (“e-assessment”) offers the potential to deliver summative, formative and diagnostic assessment to assess a range of learning outcomes for large student numbers. The assessment can be embedded within learning design in a way that can motivate students and help them to pace their studies.
Meet our experts on assessment
José Janssen is an associate professor at the Open Universiteit in the Netherlands (OUNL), Faculty of Educational Sciences, department Online learning and instruction. She was involved in the Horizon 2020 TeSLA project. Her current research interest lies in technology enhanced assessment. Keywords: self-assessment for informed study decisions, multimedia in online assessment, authentic assessment, e-portfolio.
Klaus-Dieter Rossade is Associate Dean Curriculum in the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (WELS) at The Open University, UK. He is also Director of the Assessment Programme for the university and leads on several institutional change programmes, including the implementation of an end to end Exams and Assignments solution. Other roles focus on quality assurance and validation. He brings to his work over 30 years of experience in language and literature, communication, and leadership in Higher Education. More recently he shifted his focus on assessment in HE. He started his professional career as a sound editor for German Public Broadcasting which initiated a lifelong passion for the spoken word.
Carlton Wood started work for the Open University (UK) since 2005. An academic with the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) faculty, he has served as Associate Dean for Student Experience for the last 6 years. He has a particular interest within student support and also around assessment matters. He is also an Assistant Director for the Assessment Programme for the OU and is currently leading on a large project to introduce on-line examinations for the organisation.
Ana-Elena Guerrero-Roldán, PhD in e-learning and technology from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC). She is Bachelor on Pedagogy from Ramon Llull University and specialist in Online Education. She has a Master in Information and Knowledge Society. Since 2003, she is an associate professor at the UOC. She focuses her research on the design of technology-enhanced systems for online education, focusing mainly on e-assessment. She is the IP of TEKING research group and she has participated in several national and international research projects. She is the coordinator of the TeSLA EU project (H2020.Ref. EC: 688520).
Claudine Muhlstein-Joliette, Fédération Interuniversitaire de l'Enseignement à Distance (FIED)
Murat Akyildiz, Anadolu University
Tarja Ladonlahti, University of Jyväskylä (JYU)
Vassilios Verykios, Hellenic Open University (HOU)
EMPOWER offers
We take a broad definition of technology-enhanced assessment to include:
- Computer-marked assessment (including sophisticated questions which can, for example, deliver targeted and graduated feedback on questions which require students to enter their answer as a free-text sentence)
- Electronic management of assessment, which allows for the electronic and return of assignments, marked by humans
- Online examinations
- The marking of digital artefacts (audio, video, software, digital papers)
- The assessment of synchronous and asynchronous group interaction
- The assessment of ePortfolios
- Electronic tools to assist in the process of peer review
Learning analytics enable us to use data to improve the learning process for students, both directly (by delivering learning that is personalised) and indirectly (by informing teachers of common misconceptions and informing learning designers of what works well and what does not).
Empower experts are available to help you to address some of the misconceptions surrounding assessment in online/blended environments, as well as challenges and opportunities including:
- The assessment of prior learning/diagnostic testing
- Authenticity of assessed tasks
- Authentication/identification of students
- Plagiarism and developing good academic practice
- Online marking
- Examinations in remote locations
- Achieving quality and consistency of marking and feedback, for work that is marked by many different people in different places
- Assessment of very large courses, including MOOCs.