Staffordshire University’s Steve Hollyman and Duncan Hindmarch recently published a discussion piece on the WonkHE blog titled “Judging yesterday’s creative work by today’s standards is a tough ask“. They have summarised their thoughts here for the TILE Hub Blog, to prompt discussions around how we can meaningfully retain and review old assessments in the context in which they were produced.
Dr Duncan Hindmarch is Course Director for Postgraduate and Professional courses at Staffordshire University’s Institute of Education. The IoE offer face-to-face or 100% online courses to support the career development of academics at Staffordshire University and beyond. One of Duncan’s recent works was A Concise Guide to Lecturing in Higher Education and the Academic Professional Apprenticeship, available from Critical Publishing.
Steve Hollyman is a Senior Lecturer in Storytelling, Critical and Contextual Studies, in Staffordshire University’s School of Digital, Technologies and Arts. Steve’s most recent novel, ESC&CTRL, was published last year, by Influx Press.
Will the Office for Students B4 condition to retain assessments for years mean inspectors will be issued with time travelling DeLoreans?
For quality assurance purposes, the OfS requires providers to retain students’ assessed work for up to five years after the completion of their course. But reviewing work and tutor feedback years after it was originally produced is not without its problems.
Authentic assessment methods encourage students to negotiate their response to an assessment brief, to reflect modern workplace expectations and personal career aspirations. This may include creating a digital artefact such as a podcast, app, blog, or short film; or perhaps organising a live event. To support employability, such work is often accompanied by a practical element to justify the work’s potential market value to a targeted audience or outlet.
However, in a fast-changing market, what was once cutting-edge can quickly become clichéd. OfS inspectors will therefore need to be not just discipline experts but also have awareness of what represented “credible” work for each specific past year they review. Otherwise, barring the use of a non-factory standard DeLorean with after-market flux capacitor…
How will inspectors be able to evaluate what represented excellent, good or poor work at the time the work was submitted? Is this akin to trying to step into the same river twice?
Where technology is used there are also serious concerns:
Who has responsibility for ensuring and funding ongoing access and functionality of systems which may become obsolete?
Professor Stephen Hawking famously organised a time travellers’ party – with the invitation sent afterwards – but no one attended. Rather than attempting 88 mph time travel, perhaps the OfS could focus on evaluating present assessment practices by selecting a sample of work from each year’s cohort for review and discussion. This might not resolve differing viewpoints of what makes an effective assessment, but it would save universities second guessing what may or may not be acceptable – and accessible – in many years’ time. With constructive dialogue to improve assessment practices between the OfS and providers, it might just help back ourselves for the future too.