The UK's Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has released a new guide titled 'Effective Assessment in a Digital Age'. The guide seeks to demonstrate how technology can significantly improve the experience of assessment and feedback. As many higher education institutions are reviewing their assessment strategies, JISC is looking at the transformative effects of technology that increase learner autonomy, enhances the quality of the assessment experience and improves teaching efficiency.
Technology is observed to provide ways of enabling students to monitor the standards of their own work. It can be designed for the purpose (such as on-screen assessment delivery systems or originality checking software) or adopted from a pool of widely available generic and often open source software and familiar hardware (such as digital cameras or handheld devices). According to Sarah Davies, JISC e-Learning Programme Manager, technologies such as voting systems, online discussion forums, wikis and blogs allow practitioners to monitor levels of understanding and thus make better use of face-to-face contact time. Delivery of feedback through digital audio and video, or screen-capture software, may also save time and improve learners' engagement with feedback.
Effective Assessment in a Digital Age outlines some of the key benefits of technology, such as: better dialogue and communication that can overcome distance and time constraints; immediate and learner-led assessment through interactive online tests and tools in the hand (such as voting devices and Internet connected mobile phones); authenticity through online simulations and video technologies; risk-free rehearsal of real-world skills in professional and vocational education; fast and easy processing and transferring of data; improved thinking and ownership through peer assessment, collection of evidence and reflection on achievements in e-portfolios; making visible skills and learning processes that were previously difficult to measure; a personal quality to feedback, even in large-group contexts.
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