Autumn Newsletter 2016
Welcome to the latest quarterly from the eAA
I wanted to start this edition of the eAA newsletter with news of the very first international e-Assessment Awards. Read on to find out all about the awards, how to enter and also how you can help make our awards a success. We also bring you a news round-up, a new blog post from fellow Board member Graham Hudson and help you catch up with the other work of the Association and what has been happening within the world of e-assessment. In September, our Secretary, John Winkley, gave a brief introduction to the eAA to delegates at the EAMS conference in Newcastle. As a result, we are looking to continue to work together and support the EAMS (e-assessment in mathematical sciences) community. Since starting to post more blogs on our website, you may have seen one from Board member Helen Claydon on the importance of communication when developing or delivering e-assessments, and more recently Board member Tim Downie posted an overview of the European education landscape. With an exclusive peek at the latest blog in this newsletter, here’s a quick link to all of the earlier blogs on our website: https://www.e-assessment.com/category/news/blog/
Do please all to keep in touch. Whether you have news to share, a blog you’re burning to write or questions about the new award programme, there are plenty of ways to get in touch. You can email us at [email protected]e-assessment.com or fill in the ‘contact us’ form on our website.
I end with a note to encourage all of you to consider entering the e-Assessment Awards. Whether you are a e-assessment solutions developer, supplier, an awarding organisation, an employer, a school, college, university or independent training provider, if you know of an innovative example of where e-assessment has been deployed to deliver formative, summative assessment or to support or measure learning, then please do consider submitting for an award – we’d love to hear from you – and who knows, you might win!
Best wishes
Matt Wingfield, eAA Chairman
CONTENTS
- eAA Announcements
- e-assessment news round-up
- PSI as headline sponsor for the new international e-Assessment Awards
- 10 Benefits of On-screen Question Authoring
- The Value of Implementing Technology in Apprenticeships
- NEW e-Assessment Awards – enter now!
- The opportunities and challenges that personalisation brings for learning and assessment
- Autumn events round-up
- Definitions of e-assessment
- Blog: What can business teach us about assessment?
- Follow the story with the eAA
- End Note
eAA Announcements
Awards
The first international e-Assessment Awards programme has been launched to highlight and celebrate the outstanding and positive contributions that technology makes to all forms of assessment. www.eassessmentawards.com
Definitions of e-assessment
We are working on a set of definitions specific to e-assessment. We will be looking for help from the whole e-assessment community to fine-tune our draft, which will be ready in time for the next newsletter.
#eAssessChat
e-Assessment news round-up
Collaborations: Back in July we noted that The Association of Corporate Treasurers (ACT) was moving to online assignment submission, using Turnitin and Calibrand; whilst Cirrus Assessment announced a new partnership with ProctorU.
ProctorExam and a consortium of HE institutions and associate partners launched “the largest global research into online proctoring”, funded by Erasmus+
Australia: Federal, state and territory education ministers in Australia agreed that NAPLAN (National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy) will move online from 2017.
The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) has instigated and led a project to produce a suite of common assessment items for use in medical schools in the UK and Australia.
Sponsor news: Interested too to see our Bronze sponsors, Cirrus Assessment, opening an office in the US and delighted to welcome a new set of sponsors for our inaugural awards programme: PSI, RM Results, NFER, ACER and AlphaPlus all helping ensure the awards are able to go ahead.
Watch our website for regular news updates.
If you have news to share, please email Karen at [email protected]e-assessment.com or tag us on twitter @eAssess
PSI as headline sponsor for the new international e-Assessment Awards
By Alistair Fryer-Bovill, PSI
When the opportunity came up to be the headline sponsor for the new e-Assessment Awards, we were immediately taken with the idea. The timings seemed perfectly aligned, both from the point of view of the e-Assessment Association’s wish to celebrate innovation in assessment and our own desire to raise our industry profile outside of the US.
In the US, as well as its certification and talent assessment business, PSI is the leading provider of high stakes licensure (license to practice) exams to State and Federal agencies, for everything from real estate to cosmetology. However, until 2016 it was relatively unknown outside the US.
The changed in February this year when PSI established its presence in the UK and Europe through its acquisition of EnlightKS, a major player in the digital skills certification marketplace and e-Assessment technology provider for the UK Government e-Assessment framework.
One striking feature of this transatlantic alliance has been to highlight the sharp contrast between the number and variety of associations and forums in the US, in which e-assessment features, and the relative dearth elsewhere. We hope that through its efforts generally, and the new Awards programme specifically, the e-Assessment Association will start to address this disparity and, through greater collaboration, give greater prominence to advocates of e-assessment withing the UK, Europe and beyond.
10 Benefits of On-screen Question Authoring
Using a sophisticated assessment authoring solution to create a central repository of question content is considered to be best practice when it comes to the creation of on-screen and paper-based examination content.
Article by BTL Group
- Work to an agreed process and avoid missing out important information
- Increase productivity and feedback as part of a collaborative team
- Let nothing be lost in translation, reduce design and layout iterations
- Save time with automated item publishing
- Be proactive with production management, see at a glance how close you are to meeting your authoring quotas.
- Find items and data quickly
- Improve data quality with consistent and accurate metadata
- Give your questions more impact with rich media
- Get a greater sense of pride in your work and be more creative
- Improve the candidate experience, see the question as a student would with instant preview
This half-day seminar from Assessment Tomorrow, was to explore the potential for using technology to support, enhance and manage assessment and learning within Apprenticeship training and qualifications. The new Apprenticeship programme in England will present both providers and learners with a range of learning and assessment challenges, not least the organisational separation between employer, learning provider and the provider of the end point assessment.
To help make this both a manageable and valid process for the trainee apprentice as well as a cost effective model, organisations will need to bring technology to bear. They not only need to recruit and train but to track, assess and then provide a final assessment all at the same time as providing reports to funders and managing employer expectations.
This seminar brought together contributions from the DfE, training providers, FE colleges and solution providers to take a first look at the possibilities.
Other planned Assessment Tomorrow events for 2016/17 include:
“Enhancing Mathematics teaching and assessment through the use of Technology” – our 1 day annual Scottish Conference in conjunction with SQA. Thursday 26th January 2017, Hilton Grosvenor Edinburgh.
“e-Assessment: commissioning, implementing and delivering” – the 15th annual e-Assessment Question Conference and Exhibition, Wednesday and Thursday 22nd and 23rd March 2017, America Square, London. This year planned to coincide with the 1st eAA e-Assessment Awards.
“e-Vocational 2017” – in conjunction with FAB, Thursday 18th May 2017, Leeds. Full details to be announced shortly.
Jeff Ross
Joint Conference Director
- Lifetime Contribution
- Best Use of Formative Assessment
- Best Use of Summative Assessment
- Innovation
- Best Institution
- Research
- Export
The use of technology in assessment is widespread and growing. However, paper examinations still dominate and, regardless of sector, many of the barriers to e-assessment are the same. Lessons learned in one sector, can often inform another.
The e-Assessment Awards have attracted an array of international sponsors and the e-Assessment Association (eAA) is proud to announce PSI as its headline sponsor for the Awards.
“With a track record in assessment spanning over 70 years, of which over 20 years has been in what we would recognise as e-assessment, we are only too aware that the pace of technological change in this field is greater than ever before,” commented Adrian Palmer-Geaves, Managing Director of PSI’s International division. “Only if we are willing to collaborate as an industry and share ideas and best practice, will we achieve the full potential of these advances.
PSI hopes that the sheer range of entries, as well as the shortlist and awards themselves, will be the clearest indication yet of the extraordinary vitality of the technical innovation that is present in our industry today.”
For more information and to enter the awards, visit www.eassessmentawards.com
In addition to entering, please do also help us spread the word about the awards and do not hesitate to get in touch if you would like more information.
The deadline for entries is 31st December 2016
The opportunities and challenges that personalisation brings for learning and assessment
#eAssessChat with eCom Scotland
eCom Scotland hosted a lively Twitter Chat on the 12th of September which was supported by the e-Assessment Association. The focus of the Chat was the opportunities and challenges that personalisation brings for learning and assessment.
The debate started with the question:
Opinions ranged from ‘the ability to deliver learning content pertinent to the specific needs of the learner’ to ‘using edtech to help the learner understand their own capabilities’ and ‘enabling efficiencies across the assessment experience’. It was agreed that effective PLA delivered through edtech must support pedagogy and the teacher, and not disrupt it. As well as that, effective personalised learning needs to be deeply embedded with personalised assessment.
The discussion progressed onto whether personalised learning is better than individualised learning. There was some clarification on the distinction between the two (drawing on a video from Dylan Wiliam), with individualised learning defined as students working autonomously and independently on their own work. It was suggested that one way to personalise learning is by allowing individuals to find their own approach and smart use of technology can free up the teacher to more actively support learner-driven learning.
The Chat then moved on to collaboration with the question
It was raised that collaboration is key for any effective learning/assessment and that it should enhance PLA and not hold it back. However it was recognised that collaboration is often interpreted as ‘cheating’ so a fresh approach is needed where collaboration be praised/welcomed. Getting the buy-in of policy makers and the media to the value of collaboration as part of assessment, is key.
The chat rounded off with a quote from a blog by Guy Shearer “Personalising learning is about equipping each student to personalise their own learning experience”. PLA is not just about personalised content delivery, but also prompting learners to create their own personalised content.
Definitions of e-assessment
The eAA has been working on a set of definitions, a new glossary for e-assessment.
New blog post from Graham HudsonClick here to read the full blog post
Graham is a Board member of the eAA and supports awarding organisations with tackling key issues of the moment, helping prevent costly mistakes and bringing thirty-plus years’ experience of educational change to bear. He can be contacted through the e-Assessment Association
Follow the story with eAA
@eAssess
#eAssessment #eAAwards #eAssessChat
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