More than Marking

It’s useful to step back at this stage, before we get into the technology, and make sure we take a wider view of assessment as being about ‘more than just marking’. It is especially important to view assessment as a (varied) tool that can drive and support learning in a number of ways and not solely as a means of evaluating / measuring student knowledge and skills. This subtle but important distinction is part of moving teaching into the more ‘design intensive’ mode that is needed to make the best use of technology. In our project we found that introducing e-assessment into existing courses sparked quite a lot of wider course redesign on the part of the lecturers. Choosing how, when, where and what we assess can have a major impact on student learning and is a crucial part of good course design.

The move to project-based learning at City of Glasgow College has resulted in major redesign of some courses in terms of what is taught and when. For instance, making sure theory is taught and assessed in practical contexts, where previously theory had been taught in isolation – resulting in poorer student outcomes. Thus, assessment comes to be seen as a tool for learning and not just as a means of measuring learning. This shift in perspective has big implications and the reader is directed to the REAP project website ^[1] for more guidance on assessment in general.