The workshops were intended to:

• Improve the quality and consistency of assessment and feedback
• Highlight the importance of formative assessment
• Draw attention to the broader value of assessment eg in fostering graduate attributes
• Demonstrate the importance of tone as well as content of feedback

The project was commissioned in response to Feedback and Assessment scores in NSS and ESES, with a view to investigating WHY scores are not better, and what can be done to improve assessment and feedback.

Students receive feedback straight away, removing the delay of waiting for a human marker to respond. Use by groups in the teaching studios encourages students to communicate and to collaborate.

The MSc in E-Learning has a very high retention rate. This is in contrast to many distance learning courses, which often have a high drop-out rate stemming from a lack of a sense of community among the participants and a lack of tutor presence. This approach aims to address this.

There is a known requirement to assist students with their module choices in teaching programmes in the University to ensure greater balance of assessment types across their programme of student; to ensure pre requisite courses have been completed in the early years; and to highlight bunching of assessments and feedback overlaps. Assessment deadline bunching can be a massive issue for both students and staff workloads. Feedback on assessments is often received after another assessment is due, which does not allow the student build on their feedback in the next assessment.

At a programme team away day for the MSc in Digital Education, May 2013, connections between the programme courses based on themes, feedback practices and assessment activities were mapped on flipchart paper....

“We adopted peer assessment because we were aware that our distance learning students wanted a way of feeling more part of the assessment process, a way of getting good feedback on group assignments, particularly when they are at such a distance.”
Sharon Boyd, Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies

Group work is essential for enhancing student interaction but can be challenging to achieve in an online distance learning programme such as the MSc/Dip/Cert in Equine Science. Against a background of increasing numbers of students we looked tools that could facilitate peer assessment in a scalable way. We chose to pilot WebPA, a free JISC-recommended tool that met our assessment development requirements.

Students were in general...

The aim of the OER assignment is to provide a high-quality, engaging introduction to topics each student has explored in a previous ‘position paper’ assignment. These topics are aligned with one or more of the course themes, but go beyond them to explore ideas, issues and possibilities relevant to each author’s interests and context.The key to this course is the way it is co-created by its participants. This is important because of the subject matter of the course – digital futures – and how quickly the topics of interest evolve. Creating a sustainable and exciting course of this nature needs a pedagogical approach which is both carefully structured and open in terms of content.

At Edinburgh a Senate Curriculum and Student Progression Committee (CSPC) working group had been looking at resits and supplementary assessments under the leadership of Prof Ian Pirie and issued a ‘Resits and Supplementary Assessment’ document which took effect on August 1st 2014. Among other things, the working group wanted students to be provided with appropriate opportunities to address failure. Schools were also be expected to provide information to students about the guidance available to them when taking additional assessment attempts. We felt that at the IAD we could provide something from the centre in support.

Students need to have the opportunity to address the underlying issues that have contributed to failure so that failure is not repeated over time. These are...

The new design was intended to:

• Move from the large lecture format that encouraged passive learning
• Foster critical, independent thinking
• Address authentic, contemporary issues
• Build a sense of belonging to an academic community for both tutors and students
• Draw on the diverse strengths of the multi-disciplinary cohort
• Improve the quality of tutorials by supporting and training doctoral students

One major concern for academics working with postgraduates who have English as a second language is their academic writing ability. This collaboration of EAP and subject teachers is a response to Hyland’s (2013a, p. 251) ‘strong argument for writing teachers to establish greater collaboration with discipline teachers to identify the arguments, expressions and expectations of the discipline’.

Ideally, running a course early in the academic year provides students with the opportunity to develop their writing skills and adjust to a different set of academic expectations before their first formal assessment.