A Roadmap for e-Assessment

A JISC funded project within the JISC e-Learning Programme (2005 - 2006).
Denise Whitelock  and Andrew Brasher  (The Open University).

This project set out to review the policies and initiatives relating to current e-assessment practice in the UK. It also drew upon the findings of the e-Assessment Case Studies project, another JISC funded project undertaken by The Open University and the University of Derby, to understand what e-assessment meant to both users and producers and how these notions impinged upon pedagogical practice and plans for future developments.

The roadmap project final report is available from the e-assessment page on the JISC website.   A visualisation of the issues raised in this report is on this page.

The major findings include:

• A more personalised learning agenda is being advocated in all the e-learning policy documents produced within the United Kingdom and e-assessment is one route to achieve this vision

• Only QCA have put a timeframe on their plans for e-assessment and this is 2009

• Principal facilitators for effective implementation of e-assessment include
  • Senior management support
  • Strong staff development
  • Pedagogical and technical support for tutors from central services

• Drivers for adoption of e-assessment
  • Perceived increase in student retention
  • Enhanced quality of feedback
  • Flexibility for distance learning
  • Assisting with large student numbers
  • Objectivity in marking
  • More effective use of VLE
  • Principal barrier to institution-wide e-assessment remains academic staff time and training

• Vision for 2014
  • Pedagogically driven model
  • Good feedback that will promote self reflection
  • Improve question type that match learning objectives
  • more sophisticated free text entry for student answers
  • stronger moves towards andragogy
  • change in tutor’s role

• Challenges for 2014
  • More research and development
  • Better plagiarism detection and invigilation
  • Accessible and secure systems
  • Large quantities of high quality test items need to be produced