In a new open access book from the Bloomsbury Learning Environment, Sarah Sherman and Leo Havemann look at the role of technology in educational assessment and what looks set to change.

Assessment lies at the heart of formal learning, and therefore at the heart of our work as educational technology practitioners. For our students in higher education institutions throughout Bloomsbury and the wider sector, undertaking coursework typically involves the use of online services and software to research and produce digital documents which are then submitted via a virtual learning environment (in our case, Moodle). Increasingly, marking and feedback also takes place online. These changes to assessment practices have been brought about through dialogue, collaboration and investment of precious time by academics, administrative staff and learning technologists, and by and large, the results appear to be welcomed by both students and staff. Yet this is not the full story of the role technology already and potentially plays in assessment. Online submission and marking of digital documents represents a digitisation of offline practices, which brings various new affordances (and of course removes others), but is not necessarily transformative.

Student attainment and satisfaction are sector-wide concerns, leading to calls from influential agencies such as the HEA and Jisc to enhance and transform assessment practices. The Bloomsbury Learning Environment (BLE) agreed in 2014 to focus the consortium’s shared activities on the ways in which learning technologies can enhance and support assessment and feedback. We wanted to gain an overview of current practices throughout Bloomsbury, and at the same time uncover and share examples of people making use of learning technologies in ways which go beyond the norm of digitised offline practice. Over the two subsequent academic years, we organised a programme of online and face-to-face events, conducted research, and collected case studies highlighting good practice.

In our experience, teaching staff often do not have much opportunity to find out what their peers are doing. Therefore, we have now published the written outputs of our enhancement theme as a freely available, open access ebook entitled Assessment, Feedback and Technology: Contexts and Case Studies in Bloomsbury. The ebook contains three research papers, which capture macro-level snapshots of current practice across the BLE partner institutions, as well as a wide range of pedagogic and technical case studies. These chapters have been contributed by academics, learning technologists, administrators and consultants, bringing a variety of perspectives to the topic. In developing this collection, our aim is therefore to offer an overview of current assessment practices, and hopefully some inspiration and ideas for making better use of technology.

The research presented in the first three chapters of the book include specific examples of practice at the BLE partner institutions from which broad recommendations have been drawn to help inform wider practice. These papers focus on:

1. The use of technology across the assessment lifecycle
2. The roles played by administrative staff in assessment processes
3. Technology-supported assessment in distance learning

The first chapter introduces the assessment lifecycle model, developed by Manchester Metropolitan University and Jisc, which helps to contextualise the Bloomsbury landscape. The chapter was prompted by a wide-ranging survey conducted by each partner member to gauge how assessment practices were delivered and supported with technology. The second chapter offers administrative perspectives of the processes involved in assessment, and the research provides insight into how course administrators manage their responsibility in the workflow. We explore their pain points and consider improvements. Finally, the third chapter describes the assessment and feedback practices in the Bloomsbury programmes which offer distance learning (DL). Although it specifically considered DL, the findings and recommendations in this chapter are applicable for all teaching models.

The subsequent chapters are case studies of digital assessment and feedback practices, which operate at the micro-level of specific modules, offering an understanding of the pedagogy underlying the adoption of particular tools, and the associated benefits and challenges. The practice described does not simply replicate standard offline practices in a digital way, but extends the role of assessment and feedback. The case studies are categorised into five themes:

• Alternative Tasks and Formats
• Students Feeding Back
• Assessing at Scale
• Multimedia Approaches
• Technical Developments

The final section contains three case studies of technical developments, which have been undertaken locally to support or enhance aspects of practice. The book acknowledges the inspiring work of our colleagues but also contributes to the wider discussion in the education community regarding improvements to assessment and feedback. Most of all, we hope this collection will be of interest to academics throughout Bloomsbury and beyond who are curious to learn about and develop new assessment approaches.

Further information: http://www.ble.ac.uk/ebook.html

Authors:
Sarah Sherman, BLE Service Manager, Bloomsbury Learning Environment @BLE1
Leo Havemann, Learning Technologist, Birkbeck, University of London @leohavemann