#Telfest

Professor Andrew Taylor,Director of Learning and Teaching, Department of Politics

Electronic Management of Assessment

#Telfest

Motivation, rationale, effect• Why? Academic motivation • Selling. Dealing with staff resistance,• Reception. How it’s been viewed by

staff• Impact. Improvements to quality of

student feedback• Key warning: there will be problems• Benefits do outweigh the costs

Why?• Large number of students = large amounts

of assignments = ‘warehousing problem’• Long-running issue over quality/quantity of

feedback (module evaluations, NSS score, anecdotal evidence). Critical factor

• Steady penetration of, and familiarity with, electronic delivery (MOLE, Turnitin). Why not go to the next stage?

• Take control of an inevitable change• More professional

Selling• Extensive discussion in SSCs, L&T, Department.

Involve students and staff from the start• Don’t forget the administrative staff. Critical• Need for in-department technical help and support• Provide everybody with a clear rationale for the

change• Platform (Turnitin) • Run pilots (large and small module)• Discuss outcome of pilots• Training – lots and repeated

Reception• Students carefully briefed and given training.

Masses of material on MOLE• Train staff in groups: mutual learning• Use training to ease any remaining doubts

from staff. No such thing as a stupid question• Remarkably few moans from academic staff• Reduce administrative load/costs eventually• Took one semester to embed; now accepted• Externals very enthusiastic

Impact• Overwhelmingly positive response from students• Overwhelmingly positive response from academic

colleagues, including GTAs (who are critical)• Potential for significant increase in quality control

by module leaders• Improvement in NSS feedback score (causation

not clear but see qualitative responses)• Generally much better quality feedback but still

problem of variation that needs to be addressed• Next task: electronic submission and marking of

UG/PGT dissertations

Things to watch out for• Not all students will get it right the first

time so prepare to be flexible• Be prepared to respond very quickly and

develop workarounds (second marking)• ‘Help Desk’ for staff vital• Don’t try and translate existing system to

electronic version (problem with rubric)• iPad very popular with staff; useful as a

‘sweetener’

Is it worth doing?• Absolutely• Electronic marking is going to be

general to better to start now• Short term costs but long term

benefits• Prepare, prepare, prepare (‘the six

Ps’)