e-Assessment makes the grade

The University of Canberra is having a Learning & Teaching Week, 9-12 September, 2008 with free events, which non-UoC people, such as myself were invited to. One of the last sessions was the seminar "e-Assessment: More than just a grade", with Professor Geoffrey Crisp, Director of the Centre for Learning and Professional Development, University of Adelaide and author of the "e-Assessment Handbook".

I attended a similar seminar by Professor Crisp, at ANU last October. The presentation has been updated with new material since then. He showed simple ways to implement computer assisted assessment using existing tools such as the Moodle and Web CT learning management systems, in conjunction with web based simulations and other interactive applications. There are demonstrations of the technquies available online (you need to create your own account for acceess). He also demonstrated the use of Ken Taylor's world leading VotaPedia system, which we used at the Open 2020 Summit.

This was a very useful and skillfully presented seminar, which combined high level educational theory, painlessly combined with practical tips for teaching. About the only negative was that the University of Canberra's technology was not quite up to the job, with the system controlling the video projector crashing and other audio visual problems impeding the presentation. However, Professor Crisp was able to skillfully work around these and use them as lessons about e-learning.

e-Assessment: more than just a grade This session explores some of the opportunities offered by online assessment to improve student outcomes and the quality of the assessment tasks. The work is based on the Carrick Associate Fellowship project and describes how academics can prepare interactive, computer-based assessments using helper tools such as browser plugins, java applets, QuickTime VR and Flash. The aim of the project is to assist teachers to move beyond simple multiple choice questions in an online environment to provide much richer, authentic and meaningful assessment tasks for students. Discipline examples may be viewed at http://andy.services.adelaide.edu.au/moodle/