2011 Thursday Programme (afternoon only)

2011 Friday Programme

Thursday Programme

Masterclass Sessions

Exploring Assessment Design
Ruth Thomas, JelSIM (left)
Helen Ashton, Heriot Watt University (right)

Understanding how to design eAssessment questions is key to supporting staff and students during their learning. The right questions can provide confidence to students, highlight areas of strength and weakness to both staff and students, and allow staff to provide appropriate support.

This practical workshop covers the issues involved in designing a strategy and authoring an assessment for a course. It will consist of a mix of demonstrations, discussion and hands on work taking delegates through the process of creating of valid, reliable and practicable assessment. It will look at:

• the context of the course being assessed - deciding why, what and how to assess;
• assessing with the aid of technology - authoring of assessment items; pitfalls to avoid; making good use of multiple choice questions; assessing higher order skills;
• assessing a complete course - creating a valid and reliable assessment
• after the assessment - learning from the assessment

Delegates will be given opportunities to relate and apply the activities to their own teaching.

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Delivering Audio and Video Feedback
Carol Walker, Learning Technologist (for hire)

Traditionally feedback on written assessments has been given through annotated notes. However, studies like the JISC-funded Sounds Good project have shown that providing audio feedback to learners can have additional benefits:

• More contextual information provided
• Improved learner engagement
• Personalisation of feedback

Following on from audio feedback, interest has grown in the opportunities afforded by video feedback – where the added dimension of screen capture can offer a richer feedback experience.
In this hands-on workshop, we’ll look at ways to use free audio and video capture tools to deliver effective feedback to learners.

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Creating High Quality & Engaging e-Assessment Content - Experiences from SQA
Martyn Ware, SQA

As the national awarding body for Scotland, SQA has a strategic commitment to increasing and enhancing the use of e-assessment to support our qualifications and assessments. In support of this objective, over recent years SQA has developed a number of approaches to the use of e-assessment across a range of types of qualifications, products and services. Examples include our Solar on-screen assessments, games-based assessment, the use of social software for assessment and the development of moving image assessment. Some of these now form mainstream services for our customers: others remain at the trial stage.

The main driver behind the move towards e-assessment is to capture the many benefits it offers to SQA, our centres and in particular to learners. One of the key challenges SQA is addressing is to capture the benefits of technology in the developing high quality assessments that are valid, reliable and fit for purpose whilst remaining practicable and cost effective for SQA and its centres to develop and deliver.

This session will draw on SQA’s experience to date of developing and working with centres to deliver a range of types of e-assessment to illustrate some of the issues we have experienced and some of the approaches that have helped to address them. Whilst some of the issues are generic and apply to a range of approaches to e-assessment, others are more specific to particular approaches. We will also explore the use of SQA Academy, our Moodle-based e-learning service to support those involved in developing and delivering e-assessments.

The session will combine input from SQA staff, the opportunity for some hands-on experience of some of our e-assessment products and discussion of some of the issues raised for awarding bodies, centres, learners and others involved in supporting learning and assessment. We hope the session will be informative and thought-provoking and that, based on the experiences of those attending, it will offer us some new insights to help inform our future plans.

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Friday Programme

Keynotes

Assessment in the Digital Age: Fair Measures?
Steve Wheeler, University of Plymouth

In this keynote I will trace the history of educational assessment, and attempt to critique it within the context of a rapidly changing education system. I will pose several questions for consideration:

• How can new and emerging digital technologies contribute toward better assessment for learning?
• How might teachers and lecturers harness the power of social media and mobile devices for assessment?
• Are the assessment methods we currently employ meeting the needs of our students?
• What can we learn from games and online interaction that can make assessment more relevant and appropriate for 21st century learning?
• Are the current measures we apply in assessment fair to this generation of learners?

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“Please Sir, May I Have Some More Exams” The Student Perspective on Assessment Activities
Becka Colley, University of Bradford

This keynote will provide an insight into the minds of students as they prepare for, undertake and reflect on the processes of assessment. Using narrative, the student voice will illustrate why we need to think holistically about our assessment processes and activities.

Issues such as student engagement, motivation and belonging will be explored within the context of e-assessment. How can assessment be aligned with meaningful real world activities? Can technology provide some of the solutions?

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‘No Sweat?’ - Simulated Stress for Young Medics
Pamela Kato, Independent Consultant, University Medical Center Utrecht

Doctors in training are particularly susceptible to making errors. A majority of medical errors have been attributed to human factors such as communication habits and insufficient teamwork. Both objective and subjectively experienced stress contribute to these errors. Medical schools rarely offer training in skills to cope with stress.

Dr. Kato will talk about her most recent game, Air Medic Sky 1. AMS1 is a game designed to improve patient safety by both instructing about patient safety and practicing stress reduction exercises as a human factor. A non-invasive biofeedback device allows the user to control events in the game by managing their physiological stress response. Players learn about patient safety through mini-games, lectures from experts, and patient care simulations. The game is a novel training approach for medical interns and residents. Research on the game will also be discussed.

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Fails: When Assessment Goes Bad…
Donald Clark, Free from the Tyranny of Employment

Never in our history have learners been subjected to so much assessment at so many levels. We have international league tables such as PISA and others, national league tables for schools and HE, then a battery of assessments for children and adults throughout their learning lives. Yet many of these assessments contain flaws that cause real concern, conceptual and statistical, that invalidate their results. Despite these flaws, readily admitted by the assessment bodies, politicians continue to exploit the results making claims well beyond the original scope of the assessments.

Donald will look at international, national and other assessments to show that, in many cases, the assessment tail is wagging the dog. He will look at PISA, HE, adult learning and training, the whole gamut of learning, to expose these serious problems and show that flawed pedagogy leads to flawed assessment. In addition, Donald has some strong views on e-portfolios (see his blog post Seven Reasons why I don’t want my life in a shoebox) and will not be pulling any punches in assessing the assessors, proposing some radical ideas for ‘regime change’ change in the world of assessment.

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Workshops

The NXT Step - Assessing with Lego Robots
Kent Pledger, Mid Calder Primary School

A practical demonstration of how Lego NXT robots can be used in the classroom to challenge children’s thinking and to achieve the Experiences and Outcomes of Curriculum for Excellence through interdisciplinary learning. Delegates will experience how children can be motivated and engaged, how learning can be assessed, how children can be the lead learners and how teachers can become enablers.

The workshop will include a practical challenge with children fulfilling the role of mentors.

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Tools to Enhance Assessment in Moodle
Matt Wingfield, TAG Developments

We are increasingly asking students to create digital evidence of their learning, however, marking such digital work is not always easy. Files can be very large, accessing them requires a range of software and mechanisms for leaving contextual feedback can be complex and can often involve altering the student’s work.

This workshop will provide hands-on use of a revolutionary assessment tool from TAG Developments called Red Pen Tool, which is now available for Moodle. The tool allows users to contextually annotate and mark any digital file – text, illustrations, presentations, photographs, and even video and sound – all through a web-browser.

The session will be lead by Matt Wingfield, MD of TAG Developments and Board member of the eAssessment Association, along with a teacher with direct experience in using Red Pen Tool, to illustrate how it can simplify digital assessment, engage students, provide rapid and contextual feedback and save money on printing.

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Assessment Manager for Moodle
Jim Judges, ULCC

ULCC have been working in collaboration with a number of providers to develop an Assessment Manager module for Moodle that enables evidence tracking against course specific outcomes. Whilst initially aimed at those delivering BTEC and NVQ type qualifications this tool should appeal to any organisation using Moodle to deliver courses based on performance criteria. Following on from the popular ULCC eILP Moodle plugin, this new Moodle 2.0 based tool is due for community release via moodle.org in the autumn of 2011.

This practical workshop will provide an introduction to the Assessment Manger and give participants a hands-on opportunity to experience this tool from the student and teacher’s perspective.

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App, App and Away: Using Google Forms for Assessment and More
Martin Hawksey, Ed. Tech Mash-up Artist

Within the academic community, there is growing interest in personalised learning environments at the same time we are seeing more staff create their own personalised tutoring environments. Using free tools, tutors are creating learning environments that are more aligned to their personal, and the students’, needs.

One such tool is the Google Docs suite of documents, spreadsheets, presentations and surveys. In this session, participants will learn how Google Forms can be used for self-grading quizzes, electronic submission with customs pro-formas and get a glimpse of how common tasks can be automated using Google Apps Script.

Read about how the workshop went on Martin’s MASHe blog.

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MyShowcase - Controlling Your Digital Evidence
David Sowden, University of Hull

It can be a daunting and time-consuming task to seek out the right documents linking them to assessment criteria, as and when you need them. For example a tutor or mentor might want to have a look at your project work, and they might also want to have a look at all your media evidence too, linked to the assessment requirements. MyShowcase™ is an open source web application which offers personalised evidence gathering for e-portfolios.

Most importantly, the format your evidence doesn’t matter, MyShowCase is being developed to allow users to integrate learning evidence from a range of online sources to showcase for continuous professional development, career planning, and lifelong learning.

Participants will be given access to the MyShowcase toolset allowing them to:

Gather and aggregate
Users can bring together RSS feeds, Twitter accounts, Flickr sets, files, and weblinks and to create rich evidence streams of their online content (Note: participants should have access to these types of resource for this workshop).

Tag & Map
Tag and map evidence easily to competency frameworks, lists of learning objectives, CPD frameworks and more.

Showcase
Select, format and publish evidence for reviews, assessments, job applications, and ongoing CPD.

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A Dummies Guide to Secure Digital eAssessment
Martin Gower, eCom Scotland

You have heard all about eAssessment so now it’s time to see it in action. In conjunction with the SQA, eCom Scotland has developed a new high tech, secure, online solution for the Security Industry Qualifications (SIA) qualifications. For a no-nonsense practical hands-on workshop, embark on a journey of discovery.

From creating your own digital forms to using the webcam and digital pen, eCom is all about making eAssessment easy. Experience first hand with eCom Scotland how our secure “tried and tested” solution is impacting eAssessment.

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Seminars

Supporting Students’ Writing Skills Using Turnitin
Dr. Sharon Flynn, National University of Ireland, Galway

Over the last three years, the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) at NUI Galway has been investigating the use of Turnitin to support student writing skills, particularly in large enrolment classes. As part of a number of on-going and evolving case studies across the institution, the text matching service has been used successfully by academic staff in their teaching and assessment practices. Turnitin has been found to be a useful teaching tool when integrated into an assessment strategy that emphasises original work. When students are given access to their own originality reports, accompanied by support from tutors, student writing is enhanced.

This presentation will report on outcomes from some of the case studies and highlight the factors that contribute to a successful assessment strategy using Turnitin.

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24-hour Papers: the Open-Book Alternative to Exams for Online Assessment
David Hopkins, Bournemouth University

Common unit specifications covering delivery of subject-identical units across different courses, often with different delivery methods, are increasingly being implemented. The inclusion of a ‘coursework’ element of assessment allows for flexibility. This is different when an ‘exam’ is required; with students on a fully-online course, unable to attend an exam centre, due to differences in time zones and/or locations, the concept of an open-book exam is used. The exam paper is released to students through our VLE (Blackboard) at a time that is agreed and broadcast to students in advance. Submission of their work is required within a 24-hour window via an upload of their files to the VLE (using either the standard submission tool or Turnitin).

This presentation will draw upon the Bournemouth University’s substantial experience of presenting time-constrained papers to students studying at a distance and will consider the issues surrounding this approach. Particular consideration will be given to the importance of question design to limit scope for academic dishonesty and the University’s plans to modify this approach in the forthcoming academic year.

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Assessment in the ‘Digital Age’ and the Role of the Student
Professor Ian Pirie, Assistant Principal, Edinburgh College of Art (left)
Stewart Cordiner, Head of Visual Communication, Edinburgh College of Art (right)

During the past four years, Edinburgh College of Art has developed and implemented a constructively aligned, grade profile and assessment scheme. Since September 2010, assessment and feedback is now fully supported online within a purpose-designed Learning Management System (LMS) that enables students to self-evaluate, reflect, grade their own work and write their own feedback and for staff to design their projects, create learning resources, provide written feedback, indicate required actions and conduct assessment.

Assessment and feedback is being used proactively to support students in their learning and to help them understand their strengths, weaknesses and where particular attributes and competencies begin to be developed. The history of the student journey and progress made is available to the student and their tutors 24/7 - it now becomes quite difficult for students to maintain they ‘never get feedback’.

The presentation will cover the journey so far and explore the types of information and data that the College is now in a position to collate and analyse to evidence improvement and inform further enhancements.

Slides available here.

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Formative e-Assessment: Just Another Way to Use a Blog
Natalie Lafferty, University of Dundee

The Medical School at the University of Dundee has been piloting the use of the WordPress blogging platform to support their teaching. These pilots have been well received by staff and students and one of the features that has proved particularly popular has been the inclusion of formative e-Assessment opportunities as teachers have created cases of the week, x-rays of the week and quizzes into their blogs. Course feedback has frequently highlighted that students would like to see more formative assessment provided and students have asked for more of these formative elements to be included as the blogs are further developed and new ones are created.

This presentation will provide an overview of how using Wordpress is helping to increase the engagement of teaching staff in the use of educational technology and also stimulating students to explore their own ideas and work with academics and the e-learning team to develop formative e-Assessments to meet their learning needs.

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Some Unexpected Benefits of Technology-supported Peer Collaboration which Aggressively Attack Traditional Methods of Assessment
Sarah Honeychurch, University of Glasgow
Steve Draper, University of Glasgow

The benefits of peer collaboration in terms of building a learning community are well known, but the reasons why this happens have not been fully understood. We began with an interest in collaborative work and investigated various models of implementing this by using Web 2.0 technologies, noting that these technologies allow the teacher to evaluate individual input and to ensure that proper credit is given to each student. We ended with a startling conclusion: students are very good at providing constructive feedback to their peers and, even when this is implemented in a way that appears to be informal, formative learning happens. This led us to challenge traditional models of assessment and to re-evaluate basic principles of learning and teaching.

There is obviously a place for assessment by the teacher, but the concept of constructive feedback needs to be reconsidered. In order to explain this, we begin with an overview of some models of peer collaboration and, by presenting short case studies, we show how subtle group effects can help individual students to improve their academic performance.

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Harnessing the Potential of PeerMark to Enhance and Enrich the Student Experience of Assessment and Feedback
Dr Neil McPherson, University of the West of Scotland

The importance of providing students with an enriched assessment and feedback experience by way of empowering them as self-regulated learners is at the centre of contemporary discussion surrounding the role of assessment (see, e.g. Nicol & McFarlane-Dick 2006; Nicol 2007). Allied to this is the growing awareness of the need to develop effective learning environments that locate the student at the centre of the appraisal process (Nicol 2010; Sadler 2010).

Taking these positions as a point of departure, the presentation examines the potential of Turnitin’s PeerMark tool to enhance and enrich the student experience of assessment and feedback through the provision of a structured environment that facilitates and encourages the production of a developed matrix of peer and self-appraisal. It focuses on the use PeerMark in the construction and delivery of a formative/summative framework of assessment and argues that PeerMark can empower both students and tutors by closing the gap between students’ understanding of assessment and tutors’ expectations of student performance.

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Tips for Creating and Delivering Effective Mobile Assessments
Ivan Forward, Questionmark

Handheld, Internet-connected devices such as Android smartphones, the Apple iPad and iPhone have become increasingly more common in today’s world. These devices provide teachers with exciting new options for delivering learning and assessments to students or employees on-the-go.

This presentation will provide tips and mobile delivery best practices, and also outline the potential applications of mobile assessments. The session will also demonstrate Questionmark’s assessment management system, which enables you to author an assessment once, and then participants can take them on their device of choice.

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e-Assessment for Recruitment, Training and Testing in Private and Public Sectors: The Edumatic case at Airbus and Selor
Bert Wylin, Televic Education

Televic Education’s e-assessment platform, Edumatic, has many different use cases, ranging from recruitment and selection evaluations in HR-companies or departments (Airbus, FR) to real exams in universities and high school, or for the public sector in the national language exam at Selor, B.

The technology for this is both generic and very advanced. “Generic” meaning not content specific and very open to all kinds of content input, including many multimedia options, “advanced” meaning that very specific question types and correction algorithms will allow to create very authentic activities to train and evaluate candidates. Optional metadata allow even more detailed and flexible reporting. Recently, oral activities with automatic correction (ASR, automatic speech recognition) have been added.

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Numbas: A Powerful Open Source Tool for e-Assessment
Bill Foster, Newcastle University (left)
Christian Perfect, Newcastle University (right)

Numbas is a web-based e-assessment system developed at Newcastle University. It consists of a set of tools which produce SCORM-compliant exam packages. Features include:

• Simple installation
• Web-based, so it can run on a wide range of computers and browsers
• Exams can be deployed in a variety of locations and platforms – VLE, DVD and stand-alone on the web
• Support for all standard question types including symbolic mathematical input
• Write questions using simple markup with any text editor
• Questions can be fully randomised
• Rich content such as videos and interactive graphs can be included easily
• SCORM 2004 standards compliant
• Support for themes to change the look and user interface of exams
• Support for extensions to add new features, such as new question types, mathematical and statistical libraries

Follow this link for an interactive demonstration of the Numbas platform.

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Authentic Assessment in Law: SIMPLE
Karen Barton, University of Strathclyde Law School

The SIMulated Professional Learning Environment (SIMPLE), developed at Strathclyde University, enables students to collaborate on professional simulations across professions, disciplines, countries and cultures, and at any educational level. The open-source software enables powerful interactions between simulated roles and users, and the completion of professional tasks. Students learn by doing the professional tasks through innovative and authentic assessment, and by interpreting and reflecting upon their experiences. The result is situated experience that deepens learning, is hugely enjoyable for students, and fascinating for staff because it enables students to learn effectively using sophisticated technology and a constructivist approach to learning and assessment.

The concept of authentic assessment is central to the education paradigm of Transactional Learning on which the SIMPLE environment has been based and is an interesting example of how technology has enhanced the practice of assessment in this area.

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Assessment Futures: the Role for e-Assessment?
Peter Hartley, University of Bradford

Over the last decade across UK HE, various national and institutional teaching initiatives have shown how assessment can be changed to improve student learning. This has been accompanied by developments in conceptual models focused on how assessment affects student learning and by new methodologies for evaluating the impact of changes to assessment (Gibbs 2005; 2007; 2009; Rust et al. 2008; Nicol and McFarlane-Dick, 2006). However, almost all this innovation and development has been at the level of individual course units/modules.

Module/unit innovation can fail because the programme-level environment which students experience is not congruous or aligned. This may explain some of the variance which institutions notice in student reactions to their assessment and feedback. For example, the Student Course Evaluation Questionnaire in Australia and the UK National Student Survey (NSS) are both used as part of national QA efforts and to inform student choice. Both assume that students respond to entire programmes in their learning, not just individual units/modules. In the UK, institutional NSS scores vary more for items concerning assessment than for any other aspects of students’ higher education experience, and so students’ responses to programme-level assessment environments contribute very significantly to national rankings of institutions. There is a growing awareness that assessment needs to change at programme level if students’ programme-level learning responses are to be affected positively.

What might these changes involve and what does this mean for e-assessment?

This session will discuss ‘assessment futures’ from two perspectives:

1. Developments in integrative and programme-based assessment
Studies have identified greater differences in students’ learning responses to assessment between institutions than between courses or programmes within institutions (Gibbs et al 2007, Gibbs et al, 2009), indicating that there are different institutional assessment environments. Building on interim findings and fundamental issues from two current multi-institutional projects (PASS and TESTA), I will examine and discuss the impact of different forms of assessment at programme level on students’ overall learning responses.

2. What could this mean for e-assessment?
The accessibility and power of new computing hardware and software gives us a range of opportunities to improve the ways we assess and provide feedback to students. The most promising of these include new methods for audio/video feedback, developments in computer-aided assessment, and approaches to curriculum design which integrate assessment and learning. I will suggest how these developments can best support more integrative approaches to assessment.

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Getting Vocal About Feedback
Malcolm Mactavish, University of Abertay Dundee

We want students to be the best they can be. In pursuit of excellence, we provide written feedback; where they went wrong, could have done better, etc. Good feedback helps weaker students improve their chance of a successful reassessment. BUT how many actually read and understand what we write? AND being realistic, how much time are we prepared to devote to 80+ students?

Malcolm ran a successful trial using feedback by audio recording – quicker for staff, more comprehensive for weaker students and universally popular across the cohort. So what could possibly go wrong .. go wrong .. go wrong ..

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Personalising the Assessment Experience: Closing the Gap Between Learning, Assessment, Feedback and Future Performance
Shane Sutherland, PebblePad

Drawing upon real examples of practice, delegates will be guided through an array of online assessment features designed specifically for deployment in the seemingly paradoxical context of personal learning spaces in an institutional context. Assessment should always be viewed as a catalyst for learning and the functions shared in this session demonstrate that the needs of the tutor and institution need not compromise the needs of the learner and their learning.

Specifically there will be an opportunity to see how tools such as the scaffolded feedback forms, the comment bank and the ‘feedback conversations’ are used. The inclusion of validation functions, foot-printing and commenting enables tutors, assessors and moderators to ‘converse’ and reflect on the assessment process in the tutor blog. Including students in the assessment process is easily facilitated through permissions that allow peer review to be anonymised. In more formal approaches to assessment work can be blind/double blind marked and snapshots of all work, feedback, grades and moderation can be made.

Adding to the list of assessment functions designed to support learning is the recently developed ‘quiz builder’ tool. PebbleQuizzes promote extensive feedback and provide the learner with a durable record of their performance which can be shared, reflected upon and treated like all other portfolio assets.

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Mahara in Action
Gordon McLeod, Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama

In this talk, Gordon will give a very practical overview of some of the functionality, practical uses and features of Mahara which include:

• Learner-Led Portfolio-building and why personalised learning matters.
• Storing and accessing learner files and data
• Showcasing Learner/Tutor skills/knowledge
• Planning our own learning with goals and action plans
• How Communities of Interest (Groups) can enhance practical skill development
• Formal assessment within walled gardens - considerations
• Mahara 1.4 – initial thoughts

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Building the e-Assessment Centre
Gavin Lang & Claire Fulton, Edinburgh’s Telford College

Building and setting up a designated e-Assessment centre can be a daunting and difficult project to manage. This short presentation will provide details on how we built our centre and how we have embedded the use of e-Assessment within our curriculum delivery, the presentation will cover the following areas;

• How did it all start?
• Building the centre
• Advantages of e-Assessment
• Setting up processes and procedures
• Types of assessments used
• Promotional activities
• Usage statistics

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Can We Rely on Intuition Alone When Designing Assessments?
Margarida Amaral, University of Porto

The University of Porto has been developing its capacity to support Computer-Based Assessment (CBA), allowing teaching staff to use technology to deliver tests in a transparent, secure and reliable environment. The transfer to an online mode has been recognised as an opportunity to revisit the the basic principles and practice surrounding assessment, with new tools revealing more about the performance of students and individual question items.

The in-house New Technologies in Education (NTE) unit supports staff through the delivery of an online course which looks at the assembly of test items for online delivery and analysis of performance. This presentation will describe how the University has supported the shift to CBT, and detail the experiences encountered on the way.

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Danni, the wonder dog, with her owner Cliff Beevers, chair of the eAssessment Association

e-Assessment Scotland 2010:
Marking the Decade
University of Dundee, 3rd September

In 2009, we ran Scotland’s largest e-Assessment conference, bringing together speakers from schools, colleges and universities to showcase innovation and best practice in the field. It was a bit of squeeze in the Hilton that day, with just over 170 people coming from all across the country.

In 2010, the conference moved to a larger venue in the heart of the University of Dundee’s campus and broadened its scope to examine how technology could enhance assessment in education, training and the workplace. Over 260 of you came to eAssessment Scotland 2010 – making it the largest single day annual e-Assessment conference in the UK!

Featuring keynotes from the leading names in e-Assessment (and also Danni the wonder dog - pictured right sporting her own eAssessment Scotland jacket), seminars and case studies covering the latest advances, practical hands-on sessions, 30 poster presentations, and the second year of the Scottish e-Assessment Awards – it all contributed to make this the one of the best events of the year.

View the presentations and posters from the 2010 eAssessment Scotland conference below:

Keynotes

What Can We Learn About Assessment from Video Games?
Derek Robertson, National Adviser for Emerging Technologies and Learning, Learning and Teaching Scotland

What is the Impact of New Forms of Social and Participatory Media on Assessment Practices?
Gráinne Conole, Professor of e-Learning, Institute of Educational Technology (IET), Open University

What Can e-Assessment Do for Learning and Teaching?
Cliff Beevers, OBE, Chair of the e-Assessment Association

What Does the Future Hold for e-Assessment?
Martin Ripley, 21st Century Assessment

Workshops

Virtual e-Assessment
Jenny Kellie and Jackie Mullen, Learn Direct & Build

Assessment of Student e-Portfolios Using the Law of Comparative Judgement
Matt Wingfield, TAG Developments
Susan McLaren, University of Edinburgh

BriteStep - Automated Practical IT Assessments
Linda Steedman, eCom Scotland

e-Assessment and Open Educational Resources – the Virtuous Circle
Shazia Ahmed, University of Glasgow
Leslie Fletcher, Liverpool John Moores University
Sue Milne, ELandWeb Ltd.

What’s happening? Twitter for Assessment, Feedback and Communication
Martin Hawksey, Regional Support Centre Scotland North & East

A Word in Your Lug
Will Stewart, University of Bradford

Seminars

Automatic e-Assessment of Mathematical Word Problems (STACK)
Chris Sangwin, University of Birmingham

e-Portfolios and assessment in Health Sciences: Supporting Professional Development in a Clinical Setting
Judith Lane and Kristina Mountain, Queen Margaret University

Don’t Make a Legal Ass of Assessment
Jason Miles-Campbell, JISC Legal

I’m Useless at Maths! How Can We Overcome this Mindset with Student Primary Teachers through the Use of e-Assessment?
Dr. Sheila Henderson, University of Dundee

Computer-assisted Language Exams for Federal Government Employees
Bert Wylin, Televic Education

Collaborative e-Assessments: Wiki Work and the Group Grade
Clara O’Shea and Hamish Macleod, University of Edinburgh

Instant Mobile Feedback for Community-based ESOL
Justin Sales, Stevenson College Edinburgh
Colin Buchanan, Scotland’s Colleges

Overcoming the Barriers to the Adoption of e-Assessment
Martyn Ware, Scottish Qualifications Authority

e-Assessment and the Independent Learner
Phil Butcher, Open University

National Implementation for ECDL (European Computer Driving Licence)
Isidoros Moulas, Seventron Limited

WebPA - A Practical Approach to Peer Assessment
Adam Crawford, Loughborough University

How e-Assessment Can Bring Significant Added Value to Maths Lessons
Margaret Ferguson, Hermitage Academy

Keynotes

What Can We Learn About Assessment from Video Games?
Derek Robertson
National Adviser for Emerging Technologies and Learning, Learning and Teaching Scotland

When you watch children play video games have you ever thought about how the progress they make and the skill levels they attain can be linked to assessment, a vital ingredient in the teaching and learning process? It is clear that ‘learning’ is happening when children play games but how is the assessment of this learning happening and what is it about the world of the video game that encourages and nurtures this apparent intrinsic motivation to improve performance?

In this presentation Derek Robertson will share some examples of game play from schools and discuss what schools and industry can learn about the way young people assess their learning when they play video games and what opportunities there may be to support the player/learner’s intrinsic ability to assess themselves and their peers.

Derek Robertson’s career in education has seen him work as a primary teacher, staff tutor, university lecturer and now as a National Adviser for Emerging Technologies and Learning with Learning and Teaching Scotland. His passion and belief in using technology, in particular computer games, in schools has underpinned the work that he has led via the LTS Consolarium initiative.

This belief began when he witnessed two boys in his lower ability maths group engaging with a complex problem-solving environment on the Super Nintendo console. He was astonished by their level of engagement and how they had used their own suite of strategies to overcome the problems. It made him reflect on the context of the game and why it facilitated such impressive abilities in children who had not shown it in the world of learning that they were expected to engage with in class.

Now leading games-based learning initiatives for Learning and Teaching Scotland via the Consolarium, many of his award-winning ideas for using games such as Dr Kawashima, Guitar Hero, Endless Ocean and Professor Layton have been embraced by teachers and have become embedded in Scottish classrooms. Derek speaks to local, national and international education audiences about the innovative and progressive work with games and learning in Scotland.

What Can We Learn About Assessment from Video Games? from Kenji Lamb on Vimeo.

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What is the Impact of New Forms of Social and Participatory Media on Assessment Practices?
Gráinne Conole
Professor of e-Learning, Institute of Educational Technology (IET), Open University

The talk will outline new technologies and provide examples of how they are being used in learning and teaching. It will consider what impact these new technologies have on assessment practices and will put forward the OU’s Learning Design initiative as a new methodology for helping teachers design assessments.

Gráinne Conole joined IET as chair of e-learning in April 2006, previously having been Professor of Educational Innovation in Post-Compulsory Education at the University of Southampton. Current research interests include the use, integration and evaluation of Information and Communication Technologies and e-learning and its impact on organisational change.

With research, development and project management experience across the educational and technical domains; funding sources have included HEFCE, ESRC, EU and commercial sponsors. Current projects include the JISC-funded learner experience project, PB-LXP with Mary Thorpe and the ESRC TLRP Technology-Enhanced Learning project, PI led by Eileen Scanlon and Mike Sharples, and closer to home, the OU Learning Design Initiative.

What is the Impact of New Forms of Social and Participatory Media on Assessment Practices? from Kenji Lamb on Vimeo.

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What Can e-Assessment Do for Learning and Teaching?
Cliff Beevers, OBE
Chair of the e-Assessment Association, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics, Heriot-Watt University

This talk outlines the e-Assessment Association policy that technology should serve education advising that any e-Assessment solution should seek to build on research principles. Such research includes, amongst others, the work of the Assessment Reform Group (ARG).

In general, the eAA favours a more complex question structure for automated assessment than multiple choice or its variants permit; the effective deployment of fast and accurate feedback as students progress through a question and the efficient use of data generated during tests to enhance the whole experience. This presentation will describe successful deployments of both formative and summative e-Assessment and indicate a way forward for the delivery of automated assessment.

Professor Cliff Beevers taught Mathematics for over thirty years at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and was granted the title Professor Emeritus in 2005. Cliff has worked for over two decades in the area of Computer-Aided Assessment mainly in the field of Mathematics since 1984. Through projects like CALM, MathWise, Interactive PastPapers, SCHOLAR and PASS-IT, he has sought to enhance the student experience in both secondary and tertiary education. In 2003, he was awarded an OBE for his contributions to Scottish Education. Currently, Cliff is acting Chair of the e-Assessment Association.

What Can e-Assessment Do for Learning and Teaching? from Kenji Lamb on Vimeo.

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What Does the Future Hold for e-Assessment?
Martin Ripley
21st Century Assessment

Martin Ripley is a leading international adviser on 21st century education and technology. He is a co-founder of the 21st Century Learning Alliance, and owner of World Class Arena Limited. Martin has spent 18 years in test development, which involved roles as director of England’s school testing programme and director of the government’s e-Strategy Unit.

At the heart of innovation in the design of tests in England, Martin developed England’s national assessment record for 5-year-old children, England’s compulsory testing in mathematics and science for 11-year-olds, and introduced the UK’s first national, on-demand testing programme. He also developed World Class Tests – on-screen problem solving tests that are now used worldwide as a screening tool for gifted students.

What Does the Future Hold for e-Assessment? from Kenji Lamb on Vimeo.

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Workshops

BriteStep - Automated Practical IT Assessments
Linda Steedman, eCom Scotland

In this hands-on session, e-Learning & e-Assessment experts eCom Scotland will demonstrate the latest IT Course featuring the revolutionary ‘BriteStep’ assessment question type technology.

The BriteStep technology addresses several of e-Assessment’s shortcomings and provides the basis for creating automated practical IT assessments that are automatically marked whilst allowing the educator the option to evaluate all the actions of the students. BriteStep integrates seamlessly with standard business software and can be used to test a full range of skills of students.

eCom Scotland will showcase the non-technical approach to developing a BriteStep assessment and then allow participation in the assessment to see how BriteStep:

• Captures users actions as they interact with the business software used;
• Stores the information for processing;
• Compares the stored information against templates to evaluate student performance;
• Learns new actions on the fly and stores them for future use.

The BriteStep approach provides the basis for generating a structure far superior to any existing system designed to train personnel the use of IT software and can readily be extended or integrated to use in e-Assessment engines.

Download the BriteStep: Automation in IT Assessment article published in Technology Enhanced Learning, 2010.

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Assessment of Student e-Portfolios Using the Law of Comparative Judgement
Matt Wingfield, TAG (left)
Susan McLaren,University of Edinburgh (right)

In 2004, a team at Goldsmith’s College, embarked on a 5-year pilot project, Project eScape, to investigate the use of e-Portfolios to dynamically capture live project-based student coursework. The pilot has since been extended into Scotland under a project run by Edinburgh University under the direction of Susan McLaren.

A key development through the latter stages of the project was the development of a web-based Comparative Pairs Assessment Engine, which enabled more subjective assessment criteria, such as creativity and collaboration, to be judged through the implementation of the ‘Law of Comparative Judgement’, as initially described by L.L. Thurstone in the 1927. Uniquely, the integration of a web-based Comparative Pairs Assessment Engine within an e-portfolio context, made this innovative and highly accurate form of assessment available globally for the very first time.

This workshop will be comprised of two sections:

• A brief presentation that will provide an introduction to The Law of Comparative Judgement and its implementation through Project eScape; and
• A hands-on session where the delegates will have the opportunity to take part in a live comparative pairs assessment session.

The overall aim of the workshop will be to demonstrate how simple it is to implement this form of assessment in relation to student work. It will also look at the more recent research done into the accuracy of this approach when compared against traditional paper-based/hand marking, and will discuss the benefits offered to students, institutions and accreditation bodies by this form of assessment. Finally, the workshop will not only provide delegates with the chance to try the technology first hand, but also to discuss the opportunities and challenges associated with implementing this form of assessment.

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Virtual e-Assessment
Jenny Kellie, Learn Direct & Build (left)
Jackie Mullen, Learn Direct & Build (right)

This hands-on workshop will offer two different e-Assessment experiences that are applicable across the curriculum and to any vocational sector.

The first experience is set in the 3D virtual world of the Safe Use of Fire Extinguishers and is narrated by a famous Scottish film star. It centres on dealing safely with five different types of fire. You will complete your training in the virtual training rooms then be asked to assess each fire, follow safety procedures and choose the appropriate fire extinguisher to put each of the fires out.

The second assessment experience will ask you to look at an e-Learning pack using text, flash animation and video. You will then be asked to complete drag-and drop formative and summative assessments related to the pack which will provide you with instant feedback on your results and which areas, if any, need to be revised.

Visit the Learn Direct & Build website to watch a video detailing the 3D Safe Use of Fire Extinguishers unit and learn more about their other projects.

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e-Assessment and Open Educational Resources
– the Virtuous Circle
Shazia Ahmed, University of Glasgow (left)
Leslie Fletcher, Liverpool John Moores University (middle)
Sue Milne, ELandWeb Ltd. (right)

A suite of e-Assessment tools which are compliant with the QTIv2.1 specification were developed under the MathAssess project and have now been made user-ready under the recently-completed FETLAR project. These tools include standards-compliant extensions which are particularly useful for mathematics and other numerate disciplines.

FETLAR facilitated the release of the CALMAT mathematics software under a Creative Commons licence, enabling the 2000 or so randomised questions contained within CALMAT to be extracted and translated into current formats which should provide the means for their continued curation and development. So far, only a sample of these questions has been converted; in doing so, however, it has been possible to identify some techniques which may prove valuable to colleagues embarking on the implementation of e-Assessment.

This workshop will use the MathAssess tools to demonstrate these techniques and provide participants with the opportunity to create questions and tests and deploy these in a test within Moodle. Beginning with a simple question we shall bring in additional features such as random parameters and targeted feedback. Delegates will then be invited to adapt the question for use in the context of their own discipline, and contribute the results to the question bank, after which tests will be constructed from the resulting questions.

We hope that workshop participants will become some of the early adopters of these tools and help to create a user community.

Download the e-Assessment and Open Educational Resources – the Virtuous Circle slides and additonal files from the workshop.

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What’s happening? Twitter for Assessment, Feedback and Communication
Martin Hawksey, Regional Support Centre Scotland North & East

Twitter is a social networking site which continues to divide personal opinion. Some believe that the micro-blogging service is just an opportunity celebrities to boost their ego with millions of followers or just full of people ‘tweeting’ what they had for lunch. Whilst some users do use Twitter for this purpose a number of academics are now discovering that Twitter has the potential to support teaching and learning, providing a means to enable students to discuss and share within their personal learning network. Before you dismiss Twitter there are some basics worth considering: the service is free to register, status updates can be made from the most basic mobile phone, and users can monitor conversations through multiple means including, for some users, sending free SMS updates.

This workshop uses some of the features of Twitter highlighted above to let participants experience and use this service as a free electronic voting system (EVS), for classroom administration (assessment notification/reminders) and to monitor real-time student evaluation. As this technology is relatively new the workshop will begin with an overview of basic Twitter interaction making it suitable for novice and expert users.

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A Word in Your Lug
Will Stewart, University of Bradford

As tutors, feedback is an important part of our support for students. Through our feedback we help them make sense of their learning, suggest ways in which they can improve their skills or techniques, praise what they have done well, and help move them forward to further learning. Much of this feedback takes the form of written annotations on a student’s work, accompanied by a summative critique at the end. We hope that our students will take heed of these comments and follow our recommendations in order to improve their subsequent work. There are a number of problems associated with this transmission model of feedback, not least the assumption that students will translate and decode our comments in the way we intended them to (Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2006).

While the National Student Survey indicates high levels of satisfaction with teaching in our universities, students are less happy with the assessment and feedback that we provide. Many feel that they receive feedback that is neither detailed nor useful in helping them clarify things they did not understand. In order for feedback to be useful, it has to be meaningful (Laurillard, 2002), with the best feedback actively engaging tutors and students in a dialogue that supports learning (Price et al, 2008).

This workshop will examine the use of audio feedback as a way not only of providing more meaningful feedback to students, but also as a channel for engaging students in a dialogue about their learning.

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Seminars

Automatic e-Assessment of Mathematical Word Problems
Chris Sangwin, University of Birmingham

A “word problem” is more complex than an arithmetic question. In particular, a student has to model the situation using a system of equations, and often then solve these equations to obtain the solution of the problem. Sometimes solutions have to be discarded as “unrealistic”, an important critical judgement by students. Hence, word problem usually involve “multiple steps” and higher order skills. For example, the following problem requires an appropriate choice of units (minutes vs hours) and results in a system of one linear equation and one quadratic. There are two potential solutions for the velocity, but one is negative.

In a railway journey of 90km an increase of 5 kilometers per hour in the velocity decreases the time taken by 15 minutes. What is the velocity?

Incidentally, these questions have a long and interesting history, and they are much studied by educational researchers.

In this talk we will explain how solutions to such problems can be automatically assessed using the CAA system STACK. In particular, we will focus on how to automatically establish properties of systems of algebraic equations using a computer algebra system as part of this process. For example a teacher would certainly like to know when two systems of equations are “the same”.

Download the Automatic e-Assessment of Mathematical Word Problems presentation slides here.

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e-Portfolios and assessment in Health Sciences: Supporting Professional Development in a Clinical Setting
Judith Lane, Queen Margaret University (left)
Kristina Mountain, Queen Margaret University (right)

This presentation draws upon two case studies from Community Health Nursing and Physiotherapy which demonstrate the role of e-Portfolios as an assessment tool linking to professional development:

• In our first case study, students on the BSc (Hons) in Community Health Nursing programme develop a Unifying Specialist Practice (USP) e-Portfolio. The e-Portfolio provides a means to assess the process of learning in terms of not just professional and practice development but the social, cultural and political context the students are working in. The use of ePortfolio means that the student’s evidence for each module within the USP Portfolio can be developed and stored within the ePortfolio space and the developing portfolio can be shared with the student’s Practice Teacher for formative assessment and then submitted at the end of the semester for summative assessment.
• Students on the MSc (pre-registration) Physiotherapy programme are introduced to the e-Portfolio in the first few weeks of the programme. Regular summative and formative e-Portfolio assessments require students to demonstrate learning achievements and on-going learning needs in relation to module learning outcomes. The final assessment uses the NHS Knowledge and Skills Framework to facilitate the students’ transition into qualified working practice. Feedback, provided in written and audio format is linked to the e-Portfolio, encourages students to build upon their achievements.

This presentation also discusses how learners engage with e-Portfolios. We recommend an early introduction to familiarise students with the software and provide feedback before students undertake activities out in the clinical workplace. Using e-Portfolios to assess both university and practice-based learning encourages the linking of theory and practice by asking students to reflect on learning and provide specific examples of evidence from the practice-based environment. Finally we make recommendations for tutors on how they can use the e-Portfolio as an innovative and inspirational assessment tool.

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Don’t Make a Legal Ass of Assessment
Jason Miles-Campbell, JISC Legal

More and more learning providers and examining bodies are adopting or considering the adoption of computer-mediated assessment. At the same time, learners have a growing expectation of polished, hitch-free delivery, and are less shy about taking action when things go wrong. Assessment is often crucially important to the learner, and often a matter of anxiety. At the same time, advances in many areas of e-learning take place due to the work of enthusiasts and champions, and, in many cases, from a bottom-up experimental approach. With this background, it is vital that a proper risk assessment takes places before e-Assessment is unleashed (whatever the potential benefits may be), and this should include an understanding and evaluation of the legal risks involved.

This presentation will consider the particular legal risks which arise due to the particular nature of computer-mediated assessment. It will cover the questions surrounding: collection, processing and transfer of personal information (relating to the learner’s identity and performance); the inclusion of third party materials within the e-Assessment – in particular the intellectual property issues; what liability may arise from a failure of the technology used to deliver the assessment; what the legal consequences of a student hacking or cheating the e-Assessment are; the assessing organisation’s disability equality duties in relation to the design and delivery of e-assessment; and, finally, the legal situation with respect to a student refusing to accept assessment by computer-mediated means.

In summary, the presentation will show that there are no insurmountable legal obstacles to the deployment of e-Assessment technologies, though care should be taken to ensure that their delivery is professional, robust and reliable in order to mitigate risk of legal action against a negligent e-assessment deliverer, and the consequent loss of reputation and confidence. On a more positive side, an explicit statement showing that the risks inherent in e-Assessment have been evaluated and eliminated or reduced is likely to improve acceptance and confidence.

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I’m Useless at Maths! How Can We Overcome this Mindset with Student Primary Teachers through the Use of e-Assessment?
Dr. Sheila Henderson, University of Dundee

Despite having to possess minimum mathematics entrance qualifications for primary education courses, it is often the case that students’ own knowledge of primary level mathematics is not as sound as it might be. In addition many students’ own experiences of the subject while at school have resulted in often negative mindsets to it. With Scotland slipping further down international tables in mathematics our primary teachers play a vital role in producing skilled mathematicians for the future. It is therefore vital that those studying to be primary teachers have high levels of mathematics competence and that they view the subject in a positive light.

This presentation, in which your own mathematics knowledge may be tested – anonymously of course – will aim to look at two e-assessment packages, Turning Point and Questionmark Perception. These have been used in mathematics education lectures with student primary teachers at the University of Dundee with three aims in mind:

1. to engage students in mathematics so that they can adopt more positive mindsets to the subject;
2. to raise students’ awareness of the content and level of primary mathematics they will have to teach;
3. to raise their mathematics competence levels.

Data collected from the Questionmark Perception tool have resulted in a study that was published in the Journal of Education for Teaching, and reported in the national press and Newsnight Scotland.

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Computer-assisted Language Exams for Federal Government Employees
Bert Wylin, Televic Education

In online (language) assessments, language is not the only discipline that matters. This presentation reports on a scientific screening, adaptation and extension of the national language exam for federal employees in Belgium. The complete overhaul of the exam can be seen as a model for state-of-the-art integration of new technology, sound psychometric methodology and the introduction of a contemporary vision on language learning and language testing, in line with the Common European Framework for Languages (CEFL).

According to a more modern view on language acquisition and language skills, new tasks were created for testing people’s communicative language skills (reading and listening comprehension). In line with the CEFL, new items were created for functional and communicative testing, based on a description of the professional domain in which the testee is going to work. The introduction of smart (technological) question types allowed for the use of authentic language materials (multimedia) in the exam. Interesting (IRT-based) psychometric metatags (like Pval and Logit) were added for each item. Finally, a new online preparatory learning environment has been created, including thousands of exercises and simulation exams, with tracking and logging of people’s progress and results, thus allowing a truly useful training before the exam.

The focus of this presentation will be the close interaction between technology (the Edumatic framework), psychometric methodology (IRT) and (language) didactics.

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Collaborative e-assessments: Wiki Work and the Group Grade
Clara O’Shea, University of Edinburgh (left)
Hamish Macleod, University of Edinburgh (right)

This presentation will examine the challenges and benefits of creating collaborative e-assessment. It will outline two cases where wikis were used as class-wide, group assessment tasks in an online postgraduate masters programme. Though both wiki assessments were based on collaboration, group work and student- led practices, there were interesting differences in terms of weighting, individual ownership of pages and centrality of the learning experience.

We will outline the experiences of tutors and students in understanding, managing and assessing collaborative online assessments and raise issues such as scaffolding, tutor roles, the challenges of group assessment and how to evaluate academic discourse that is ‘born digital’. We will draw on key aspects of the literature and consider further strategies for implementing similar activities.

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Instant Mobile Feedback for Community-based ESOL
Justin Sales, Stevenson College Edinburgh (left)
Colin Buchanan, Scotland’s Colleges (right)

ESOL students consistently identify speaking and listening as the skills they most need to develop. Debates, presentations and pronunciation drills are all used to develop spoken fluency and accuracy, but it has always been hard to give regular, detailed feedback in a timely manner – until now!

A simple, yet successful, model has been developed and implemented through a partnership between Scotland’s Colleges, Stevenson College Edinburgh (SCE) and ipadio.com, using mobile phones and web technologies. Using ipadio, ‘the home of live broadcasting’, learners broadcast their submissions direct from their phones to their own secure, personalised channels at a time and place that suits them. Peers and tutors are then alerted via RSS, Twitter or e-mail, and can then listen and respond using their mobiles.

Peers provide feedback on their friends’ spoken language files, creating a virtuous cycle of broadcasting, feedback and improvement, with immediate alerts. Tutors can also upload pre-recorded exemplar presentations and learning intentions for the students to listen to prior to lessons.

Scotland’s Colleges, SCE and the learners are excited by this technology, especially as the model can be successfully transferred and used in other areas of the curriculum to great effect. This presentation is intended to be lively, interactive and participative. We are confident that, as the use of ipadio is widely used in the worlds of commerce, leisure and education, this simple yet highly effective e-Assessment feedback model can easily be implemented to suit delegates’ own situations.

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Overcoming the Barriers to the Adoption of e-Assessment
Martyn Ware, Scottish Qualifications Authority

As part of the SQA/College Quality Enhancement Forum, an e-Assessment sub-group was established to advise on approaches to enhance quality in the delivery of SQA qualifications. The ultimate aim of the group was to improve the experience of SQA qualifications and assessments for learners and centres, though it was recognised quite early on that much of the output would be relevant to those looking to establish e-Assessment within their organisations.

The e-Assessment sub-group focuses on ways in which quality can be enhanced when working in an electronic environment. Sub-group work to date has involved consultation with groups such as JISC, HMIE and a survey of Scottish college staff on e-Assessment issues, such as the benefits of and barriers to the technology, and identifying existing and required resources to support the use of e-Assessment in centres.

This presentation will highlight some of the key findings from the survey and consultations carried out earlier this year and also put forward a series proposals on how the group will seek to progress the uptake of e-Assessment in the sector.

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e-Assessment and the Independent Learner
Phil Butcher, Open University

This presentation reports on how a foundation in computer based learning has influenced the Open University’s development of on-line assessments supported by the OpenMark e-assessment system and how this in turn is influencing current developments of Moodle.

Phil Butcher is a Fellow in the Centre for Open Learning of Mathematics, Science, Computing and Technology at the Open University where he is the co-ordinator of the iCMA (interactive Computer Marked Assessment) Initiative. With colleagues in the Science faculty ,he conceived the ideas behind OpenMark in 1996 and doffs his cap in admiration to his systems software colleagues who have turned those ideas into reality in the intervening years. Since 2005 he has been the OU’s e-assessment adviser and has steered the OU’s on-going developments of OpenMark and the current major rewrite of the Moodle Quiz.

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National Implementation for ECDL (European Computer Driving Licence)
Isidoros Moulas, Seventron Limited

The increasing demand for computer literacy skills worldwide led into the introduction of a number of certification models which, in turn, contributed to the development of the corresponding assessment tools and systems. The ECDL – European Computer Driving Licence is at the forefront of the international computer literacy skills market playing an important role in the specification of digital literacy agenda. It has become a European and international standard of digital literacy skills.

Over recent years a number of e-Assessment tools for the ECDL have evolved. This presentation will discuss the experiences gained from the design, testing and implementation of such an assessment system and its deployment in a big-bang approach on a national basis in Cyprus, serving the certification needs of more than 200 testing centers and more than 20,000 active certification candidates.

The presentation will cover the system’s technical architecture and components, its functionalities and services and examine the pedagogical and educational aspects embedded in the design. It will also highlight the pitfalls and lessons learned in the areas of team building and project management.

Watch these videos to see the TWES (TestWare Exam System) create an example question for MS Excel and an example question for MS Word.

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WebPA - A Practical Approach to Peer Assessment
Adam Crawford, Loughborough University

This presentation will provide an insight into WebPA, an open source online peer assessment tool, funded by JISC, that enables every team member to recognise individual contributions to group work.

The development of group work and leadership skills are essential within both the workplace and the curriculum. However the assessment of group work and leadership skills is difficult for senior managers and academics as many of the activities and interactions within the group occur when they are not present. The only people who know exactly what has happened are the team members themselves. WebPA was developed for this purpose, to provide an efficient, fair and consistent method of collecting and allocating student peer assessment marks to group work.

Originally WebPA was developed for two engineering academics but is now used by 60 academics at Loughborough in 16 departments, it has also been adopted by over 20 UK institutions and there has been recent uptake in Australia and USA. The presentation will describe how the tool has been used in different learning and teaching contexts and disciplines, including the rationale, implementation, benefits and pitfalls.

Practical details on accessing an online demonstrator, the open source code, the background pedagogic research, a WebPA resource pack, and user community will also be provided.

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How e-Assessment Can Bring Significant Added Value to Maths Lessons
Margaret Ferguson, Hermitage Academy

Hermitage Academy has been using formative e-Assessment in Mathematics with students from S1 through to S6. This extended use led to a Scottish e-Assessment Award for Formative e-Assessment in 2009.

This innovative approach made use of the SCHOLAR Intermediate Mathematics material which is based on the SQA curriculum. This highly interactive material was designed to help prepare students for end-of-unit assessment. The approach has allowed for individual progression by pupils to reach their maximum potential in a subject where innate ability needs to be nurtured.

A variety of methods were used with different ability groups, from individual home use to group work within the classroom environment. This presentation will share examples of practice, explore the underlying motivations and share the experiences of both student and teacher.

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	1. Exploring Health Science Learner Experiences of Formative and Summative Feedback through e-Portfolios Susi Peacock, Sue Murray & Alison Scott, Queen Margaret University
	2. Listen to This Will Stewart, University of Bradford
	3. Exploring the Use of Computational Linguistics for Automated Formative Feedback in the Humanities Jessie Paterson, Christian Lange, Iqbal Akhtar, Paul Anderson & Annette Leonhard University of Edinburgh with Francisco Iacobelli, Northwestern University
	4. Using MyMaths for the Formative e-Assessment of Numeracy Carol Gibbons, Clydebank College
	5. The CAA Balancing Act: Maintaining the Quality of Computer-Aided Assessment in a Changing Environment Glenis Lambert, Canterbury Christ Church University
	6. ‘SCENE I.T.’: Crime Scene Investigation @ Teesside University Debra Tinney, Tim James, Teesside University
	7. The Amazing Adventures of Dr Biggam and his Automated Assessment Feedback System John Biggam, Glasgow Caledonian University
	8. Developing an E-Revision Framework for Student Assessment Alan Hogarth, Glasgow Caledonian University
	9. An Intelligent Electronic Assessment System Proposal Simon Caruna, University of Malta
	10. e-Assessment and the AQTF: Bridging the Divide between Practitioners and Auditors Ms Annie Fergusson, Ms Melanie Worrall, Australian Flexible Learning Framework Dr Berwyn Clayton, Victoria University Professor Victor Callan, University of Queensland
	11. Blogs in e-Assessment: The Digital Delivery of Modular Assignments on a BA Design Degree Programme Sonia Di Gennaro, Senior Lecturer, Glyndwr University
	12. SkillsLocker: Competency Made Easy Wendy Edie, eCom Scotland Ltd.
	13. Engaging e-Learners in Developing e-Assessment Practice Liz Sheen, Glyndwr University
	14. Wikis for e-Assessment Fiona Muhsin, Dundee College
	15. Exploring New Approaches to Assessment and the Role of Technology: Early Findings Carlo Perrotta, Futurelab
	16. Mobile Technology Successfully Implements e-Assessment in Community-based ESOL Training Colin Buchanan, Scotland’s Colleges Justin Sales, Stevenson College Edinburgh
	17. Glow David Wild, RM
	18. e-Assessment in Medical Education: a Student-led Approach Annalisa Manca, University of Dundee School of Medicine
	19. ABC from Assessment 21 Bill Steele, University of the West of Scotland
	20. eFeedback: Enhancing Student Learning, A Multi-faceted Approach Fiona Curtis, Marina Sawdon & Andrew Chaytor, Durham University
	21. Web-based Peer Assessment: Peer Moderation of Group Work Dr. Adam Crawford, Loughborough University
	22. Development of e-Portfolio as a Record of Achievement, Revision Aid and Assessment Tool for Foundation Year Students Dr. Jan Chapman & Dr. Savitri Nayagam, Manchester Metropolitan University
	23. Assessing Student Performance Using a Portfolio-based Approach Andrew Gilmour, TaskStream
	24. Real Time Simulation on the Move: Transition from Theory to Practice Dr. Alastair Gemmell, Sarah Cornelius and Phil Marston, University of Aberdeen ** Winner of the Public Vote! **
	25. Development and Implementation of a Virtual Practical for Bio-sciences Dr. Alan Bowman, Dr. Colin Calder and Phil Marston, University of Aberdeen
	26. Formative Engineering Testing Kevin McBain, Aberdeen College
	27. Summative Politics Assessment Claire Jamieson, Aberdeen College
	28. Mainstreaming e-Assessment Sheila Gordon, Aberdeen College
	29. ePortfolio: Challenge or Opportunity Kristina Mountain and Susi Peacock, Queen Margaret University
	30. Building the e-Assessment Centre Gavin Lang, Edinburgh’s Telford College

Below you will be able to find a list of presentations from the conference:

Keynotes

Convivial Learning in a Tangled World
John Connell, Education Business Development Manager, Cisco Systems

Putting the ‘Assess’ in e-Assessment
Professor Dai Hounsell, Vice-Principal for Academic Enhancement, University of Edinburgh

‘Are We There Yet?’ - Tracking the Development of e-Assessment in Scotland’s Colleges
Martyn Ware, Head of e-Assessment and Learning, Scottish Qualifications Authority

Parallel Sessions

Using Games for Evidencing Workplace Skills
Mhairi McAlpine, Project Manager, Scottish Qualifications Authority

Wikis, Webs & Writing(s)
Neil Winton, Head of English, Perth Academy

Accessible e-Assessment
David Sloan, University of Dundee; John Kleeman, Founder and Chairman, Questionmark

Exploring Constructed Response Questions: SCHOLARly e-Assessment
Dr Helen Ashton, Head of e-Assessment (SCHOLAR), Heriot-Watt University

Scotland’s National Assessment Resource
Neil Livesey, Project Manager National Assessment Resource, Learning Teaching Scotland/Scottish Qualifications Authority

Death of handwriting?
Nora Mogey, e-Learning manager, University of Edinburgh

Alta Maths: “Better than working in your jotter!”
Rosetta McLeod, ICT Development Manager, Dundee City Council; Lorraine Munro, ICT Staff Tutor, Dundee City Council; Debbie Thom, ICT Staff Tutor, Dundee College

e-Assessments in Solar
Graeme Clark, Project Manager, Scottish Qualifications Authority

Introducing the WordPress e-Portfolio
Duncan Gillespie, eLearning Coordinator/Lecturer, Dumfries & Galloway College; Robert Brown, Lecturer, Dumfries & Galloway College

Skills Professionalism and Employability in the Life Sciences
Dr Maureen Benwell & Dr Linda Morris, School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee

e-scape Scotland: Capturing Creative Thinking in Real Time
Susan McLaren, Senior Lecturer in Design and Technology, University of Edinburgh

Formative, Summative and Rewards-based Assessment in Virtual Worlds
Daniel Livingstone, Lecturer, University of the West of Scotland

Keynotes

Convivial Learning in a Tangled World
John Connell, Education Business Development Manager, Cisco Systems

“I consider conviviality to be individual freedom realized in personal interdependence and, as such, an intrinsic ethical value.” So said, Ivan Illich. Assessment of learners has to begin with an understanding of what the learning is for.

Scottish education can build on enlightenment thinking, the democratic intellect and world-leading developments such as the Curriculum for Excellence, Assessment is for Learning, and Glow to show the rest of the world how an education system can adapt to and shape our hyper-connected world. The schooled mind is moribund; the convivial mind is for tomorrow.

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Putting the ‘Assess’ in e-Assessment
Professor Dai Hounsell, Vice-Principal for Academic Enhancement, University of Edinburgh

Too many university teachers, I suspect, e-Assessment currently means little more than multiple-choice questions and Turnitin. I’d like to argue that e-Assessment can offer much wider, much richer and yes more exciting possibilities, but to identify and pursue those more systematically, we need to work from a good grasp of present and future assessment practices in higher education.

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‘Are We There Yet?’ - Tracking the Development of e-Assessment in Scotland’s Colleges
Martyn Ware, Head of e-Assessment and Learning, Scottish Qualifications Authority

In the early 2000s Scotland’s colleges were perceived as making serious attempts to understand and work with e-Assessment. Since this time significant progress has continued to be made although the rate of progress appears to have slowed. This keynote will seek to review what has actually happened over this time.

Drawing on experience from SQA’s close partnership working with Scotland’s colleges and other national agencies supporting them, it will review the work undertaken by national bodies to seek to encourage and facilitate growth in the use of e-Assessment and the practical activities being undertaken at college level. It will set the development of e-Assessment in the context within which the colleges operate and make some tentative projections about likely future trends based on the current position.

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Parallel Sessions

Using Games for Evidencing Workplace Skills
Mhairi McAlpine, Project Manager, Scottish Qualifications Authority

In 2005 SQA introduced a new range of qualification designed to assess candidates Workplace Skills. Issues with evidencing some of the competences in a realistic and practicable way lead to a search for a technological solution, including the exploration of the use of gaming technology to assess candidates in key competences.

This presentation will demonstrate how serious games can be used to allow candidates to demonstrate their abilities in a simulated workplace setting, giving consistancy to the assessment environment while maintaining tutors autonomy in assessment.

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Wikis, Webs & Writing(s)
Neil Winton, Head of English, Perth Academy

The English Department at Perth Academy have been using wikis as an integral part of their formative assessment of writing. By taking some of their work online, pupils have been much more critical of their own writing simply because they are writing for a ‘real’ and rather large audience!

In this session, Neil Winton (PT English) will give an overview of some of the pupil wikis from Perth Academy.

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Accessible e-Assessment
David Sloan, University of Dundee (left)
John Kleeman, Founder and Chairman, Questionmark (right)

The ability to provide accessible assessments is becoming increasingly important, with some organisations now having a legal requirement to do so. E-assessment provides a cost-effective solution that can be customised to meet a variety of accessibility requirements and eliminates the need to maintain multiple versions of an assessment.

While best practice in this area is still developing, there are some key standards and certification issues that need to be addressed to ensure assessments are accessible. Questionmark and Dundee University have been collaborating to develop functionalities within Questionmark Perception that provide authors with the tools they need to create assessments in line with best practice in accessible web design.

This presentation will provide an overview of this project and showcase developments that address accessibility issues.

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Exploring Constructed Response Questions: SCHOLARly e-Assessment
Dr Helen Ashton, Head of e-Assessment (SCHOLAR), Heriot-Watt University

Too often e-assessment has been associated with selected response questions (variations on “choose an answer from the following list”).

This talk will concentrate on constructed response questions, exploring how they enhance question design. Examples will include those involving mathematical and graphical answers.

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Scotland’s National Assessment Resource
Neil Livesey, Project Manager National Assessment Resource, Learning Teaching Scotland/Scottish Qualifications Authority

The proposed National Assessment Resource (NAR) is an innovative project that is being designed to support Curriculum for Excellence assessment strategies. At the heart of the proposal is a repository where all assessment resources will reside, which will provide a single coherent national assessment system, building a service for Scotland based on international best practice. This presentation will concentrate on the technical aspects of the service and what is being built to support the future assessment strategies.

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Death of handwriting?
Nora Mogey, e-Learning manager, University of Edinburgh

Most students do most of their day to day work using a computer, but at the end of the semester many universities still expect students to write exam essays by hand.

This session will describe a project at The University of Edinburgh, which offers students the choice to type their essay-examination using their own laptops. In addition to the technical and practical aspects the project has explored student reactions and differences in marking handwritten and typed scripts.

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Alta Maths: “Better than working in your jotter!”
Rosetta McLeod, ICT Development Manager, Dundee City Council (left)
Lorraine Munro, ICT Staff Tutor, Dundee City Council (right)
Debbie Thom, ICT Staff Tutor, Dundee College

Alta Maths is a web-based formative assessment system, originally produced in Northern Ireland, but adapted to meet the needs of the Scottish curriculum.

This session will describe a project in three primary schools in Dundee which indicates that Alta Maths seems to have played an important role in raising attainment. Feedback from staff and pupils has been very positive, with the youngsters particularly enjoying the independence of working online to improve their results.

The detailed diagnostic feedback which the system provides is invaluable in ensuring that pupils have grasped the fundamental principles of numeracy.

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e-Assessments in Solar
Graeme Clark, Project Manager, Scottish Qualifications Authority

SQA’s Solar continues to develop an increasing number of summative and formative e-Assessments based on banks of quality-assured question items covering qualifications from National Certificate to Higher National Diploma (HND). Formative e-Assessments are quality assured and have detailed learner feedback built-in. Available subjects include:-

Internet Technologies (including Internet Safety)
Hairdressing and Beauty
Care
A wide selection of feedback-enhanced past-papers

Using the Open Assess portal, learners can access formative assessments 24/7. Over the next few months, a range of formative assessments and revision materials for other qualifications will be released. Visit the Solar website for updates.

This presentation highlights what’s available, covers current activities and gives a glimpse of future developments.

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Introducing the WordPress e-Portfolio
Duncan Gillespie, eLearning Coordinator/Lecturer, Dumfries & Galloway College (left)
Robert Brown, Lecturer, Dumfries & Galloway College (right)

From a small pilot project, Dumfries and Galloway College’s e-Portfolio now covers all curricular areas and has also been adopted by other colleges in the Scottish Educational Sector. The college also provides e-Portfolios to some school pupils not attending college. It is also seen as a benefit by the learners, with 77% indicating that they thought an e-Portfolio would be of benefit when looking for employment.

E-Portfolios have always been available for learners to take away and we now meet IMS standards to allow import/export facilities to compliant systems. The project has been subject to widespread peer evaluation by HMIe, SFEU, JISC RSCs, COLEG and several colleges and practitioners who have confirmed the success of the initiative.

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Skills Professionalism and Employability in the Life Sciences
Dr Maureen Benwell, School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee
Dr Linda Morris, School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee

The Skills, Professionalism and Employability in Life Sciences (SPELS) modules run in 1st, 2nd and 3rd year. Worth 10 Scotcat credits, they aim to equip students with skills for successful study; to develop independent learning skills, increase recognition and self-awareness of skills acquisition, foster self-reflection of achievements and to begin to identify career goals and aspirations

These modules have minimal face-to-face contact time, with most materials delivered via My Dundee, the university’s web-based student portal, and most assessments run via Questionmark Perception or by electronic submission. Students also populate a PDP through the 3 years to record their achievements. We will discuss the logistics of delivering these modules to 200+ students and present student feedback on skills gained

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e-scape Scotland: Capturing Creative Thinking in Real Time
Susan McLaren, Senior Lecturer in Design and Technology, University of Edinburgh

‘e-scape scotland’ explores innovative methods of assessing performance, based on groundbreaking work by Goldsmiths’

Technology Education Research Unit. The project encourages learners to capture their thinking, ideas, processes and outcomes, in multi-modal expression, in real time, as design activities are undertaken.

The approach adopts small digital devices, in conjunction with bespoke software, to build interactive portfolio records for learners. Teachers can provide feedback, prompts, and set targets. The main thrust of this project is to explore the potential of the e-scape methodology in school classrooms where learning and ‘Assessment for Learning’ is the primary concern. Interim responses from teachers, learners and researcher perspectives are also reported here.

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Formative, Summative and Rewards-based Assessment in Virtual Worlds
Daniel Livingstone, Lecturer, University of the West of Scotland

SLOODLE (Simulation Linked Object Oriented Dynamic Learning
Environment) links Second Life or OpenSim with the Moodle VLE - bridging the web-based and virtual worlds divide - enabling blending of activities between disparate platforms.

Gradebook integration provides new assessment types for activities that take place in the 3D environment. Existing Moodle quizzes can be brought into the 3D space, allowing assessments to be situated in environments directly relevant to curricula.

A more recent development is SLOODLE Awards - a points-based rewards framework which allows tutors to reward students on an ad hoc basis or related to success in assessments and on completion of class activities.

This talk will outline SLOODLE and present examples of e-Assessment from different classes and contexts.

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Old Hawkhill
University of Dundee

Location map

View eAssessment Scotland 2010 in a larger map

Getting to the University by train

Dundee is on the main East Coast route with direct services to Newcastle, York and London, and to Carlisle, Preston, Coventry, Birmingham, Oxford, Bristol, Reading, Southampton, Bournemouth and Plymouth.

Rail journeys to the other major cities in Scotland (Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow) take approximately 1 1/4hrs, and the regular service from London King’s Cross takes only six hours. Overnight sleeper services run from London, the south coast and the west country.

The railway station is only a few minutes walk from the University campus. Train times can be found from First Scotrail, National Rail Enquiries, or by phoning the National Rail Enquiries Centre on 08457 484950.

Getting to the University by car

For traffic coming from Edinburgh (M90), Glasgow (A9) and beyond, Dundee is best approached from the south via the A90. From the outskirts of Dundee the route into the University is well signposted and relatively easy to follow. There is also a scenic route from Edinburgh along the Fife coastline and into Dundee via the Tay Road Bridge.

Parking is available at Greenmarket Car Park (DD1 4QX), pictured on the left at a cost of £5.60 for up to 10 hours - it’s about 5-10 minutes walk from here to the venue. Other parking sites are available, check the map above for details.

Last year, the third annual eAssessment Scotland conference welcomed around 300 delegates to the silvery shores of Dundee, where they were inspired, impressed and challenged by a a stimulating programme of events. Now firmly established as the UK’s largest conference focusing on technology-enhanced assessment practices, we look forward to making the fourth conference the best yet!

Call for Posters, Presentation and Workshops

We are now inviting parties to submit proposals for posters, presentations and workshops by May 1st. Submissions will be judged by the conference committee with a final programme announced on June 1st.

We offer the following themes:

• Feedback and its role within the assessment process
• Perspectives from behind the front line - staff and learners speak out (we would be especially interested in hearing from learners)
• Emerging trends, techniques and tensions connected with e-Assessment

For the Dundee Conference, submissions will be accepted for:

• 30-minute presentations (including Q&A)
• 45-minute hands-on workshops (PC labs and seminar rooms available)
• Posters (designed for A2 layout, landscape or portrait)

For the Online Conference, submissions will be accepted for:

• 45-minute presentations (including Q&A)

Proposals for all of the above can be submitted using the template available here and must be submitted to presentations@e-assessment-scotland.org by Tuesday May 1st.

Conference Details

Can social networking, automated testing systems, and traditional forms of feedback be combined to produced new forms of feedback for learners?

This year, eAssessment Scotland turns its attention to the important issue of feedback – what forms it can take, who should be responsible for it, and how it may be acted upon once received. Technology has its part to play in bringing feedback to the fore and we want to hear how you are making a difference in this area.

The structure of the eAssessment Scotland conferences continues to evolve, responding to the feedback we receive each year. Many delegates felt there was far too little time on the day to absorb all the good content in eAssessment Scotland 2011 and so, for 2012, we will include a parallel online component. This online conference will run before, after and during the physical conference held in the City of Dundee on the 31st of August.

On registering for the online event, delegates will initially have access to online discussion boards, material related to the upcoming presentations and early access to the poster presentations. On the week beginning the 27th August, delegates will be able to sign up for online presentations that focus on the conference theme of feedback and the use of technology to enhance the assessment process. The online conference will continue until the 6th of September, allowing everyone to share their own feedback and experiences of eAssessment Scotland 2012.

The face-to-face conference on the 31st of August will once again play host to the Scottish e-Assessment Awards. Some of last year’s winners will be returning to Dundee to deliver presentations on latest developments connected with their award-winning projects. Perhaps you would like to consider submitting an entry this year? More details about the Awards are available on the conference website, with submissions accepted from the beginning of March.

Through the contributions of the organising partners and commercial sponsors, attendance at this one-day cross-sector conference and its online component will be, once again, free to delegates. With each year drawing more delegates from across the globe, make sure you book your place at the UK’s most popular e-Assessment event of the year. Registration will open mid-March.

The exhibitors at eAssessment Scotland play a vital role in the running of the conference; their contributions towards the running costs allow us to maintain our policy of making the event free to delegates.

The programme for the day ensures that time is set aside for delegates to focus on the exhibitor services and products that are on offer. If you’re interested in exhibiting at eAssessment Scotland 2012, then you can contact us by filling out the form at the bottom of this page.

There are a limited number of exhibition places available (and all of our slots were filled last year), so we recommend reserving your slot as early as possible!

eAssessment Scotland 2011 Exhibitors

If you are interested in exhibiting at eAssessment Scotland events, please contact us using the form below:

We’ll be announcing dates for eAssessment Scotland 2012 before the end of the year and hoping to open registration in March, 2012.

Look forward to seeing you there!

eAS Team

NOTE The winners of the 2011 Scottish e-Assessment Awards have now been announced - click here for more details!

The Scottish e-Assessment Awards, launched in 2009, recognise excellence and innovation in using e-Assessment to improve the educational experience of learners.

If you have been working with e-Assessment (either developing an e-Assessment product/process or utilising a product/process in your organisation) over the academic year ’11-’12, then you are eligible to submit an entry to the Awards*. Entries are accepted from any organisation (public or private) utilising e-Assessment.

Organised by the UK’s e-Assessment Assocation, the Awards are offered in the following categories:

• Formative e-Assessment
• Summative e-Assessment
• e-Portfolio
• Mobile e-Assessment
• Facilitating e-Assessment
• Innovation

Entries for the Awards are being accepted now, with a deadline of 16th August for submissions. All entries for the Awards must be submitted to SeAA@e-assessment-scotland.org using the Submission Form for the Awards available here.

The following criteria will be used by the judges to guide them in the evaluation of submitted entries:

1. Has a positive impact on learning and teaching
2. Demonstrates sound design principles
3. Supports and promotes inclusive practice
4. Engages and motivates the learner

When completing the submission form, please show how your entry matches the above criteria, giving more detail where there is a strong link with a particular criterion. The judging panel must be satisfied that the entry is of high quality, and offers significant benefits that differentiate it from other similar entries.

There may be a case where a submission technically qualifies for two categories – for example a formative assessment delivered through a mobile platform. In such as situation, submitting parties are encouraged to select the most relevant category. A single submission cannot be entered into multiple categories.

The winners will be announced at this year’s eAssessment Scotland conference, on the 26th of August at the University of Dundee. There was quite a lengthy waiting list for the event last year – so if you’re planning on attending the UK’s largest annual e-Assessment conference, register your place now!

*The Awards are open to entrants who have developed products/processes in Scotland, or are using products/processes within a Scottish organisation.

View the 2010 winners here.

Categories

Criteria

1. Has a positive impact on learning and teaching
The judges will assess your entry against a range of features, such as:

• clear guidance, with examples, on how the assessments contribute to learning and teaching
• a range of actions, following an assessment, providing positive links to the next stage of learning
• opportunities for learners and teachers to use the outcomes of assessments to structure learning in a consistent way
• a close match between the nature of the challenge to the learner and the learning objectives covered in the content
• evidence that the objectives are attainable at each step, but cumulatively challenging enough to offer concrete learning development
• encouragement for learners to demonstrate understanding and achievement in original ways possibly not available in traditional learning materials

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2. Demonstrates sound design principles
The judges will assess your entry against a range of design features, such as:

• evidence of a coherent overall design strategy
• prompt and sufficiently detailed feedback to learner actions during the assessment to sustain learner interest
• if designed to be adaptive, evidence of adaptability, flexible access and opportunities to support personalised learning - is feedback tailored to individual users?
• motivational screen design appropriate to the intended audience
• easy navigation and clear indexing
• appropriate feedback and outcomes which positively contribute to learning and teaching

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3. Supports and promotes inclusive practice
When assessing your entry, the judges will favour products which can be used in both mainstream and special educational needs settings. There should be clear emphasis on how the assessment instrument supports inclusive practice.

The judges will assess your entry against a range of features, such as:

• e-Assessment matched to a range of learning styles, together with adaptability and flexibility where appropriate
• accessibility by a wide range of users
• the potential to enhance the learning experience by customising features – e.g. alternative formats, audio options, or adjustable text size
• strong support for learner autonomy through variation of pace or differentiation of tasks
• evidence that the instrument addresses user diversity, avoiding bias and stereotyping

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4. Engages and motivates
The judges will assess your entry against a range of features, such as:

• use of ICT to offer new opportunities for engaging and motivating learners
• ways of recording learner achievement that promote motivation
• effective feedback mechanisms that stimulate and maintain learner interest
• sophisticated feedback, addressing learners’ misconceptions, together with proposals for appropriate remedial action
• opportunities for building confidence and self-esteem

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2011 Winners

Now in their third year, the Scottish e-Assessment Awards once again saw a rise in the overall number of entries, with an emphasis on Formative Assessment, perhaps reflecting the greater focus on this area in practice and research in recent years. Interestingly enough, although the number of entries have increased year on year, there were no entries for the Mobile e-Assessment category this year. A number of new products have been released that take advantage of the platform, but more time may be needed for wide-scale adoption of a mobile approach to this kind of assessment. Perhaps things will change in 2012?

The judging panel was made up of members of the Board of the UK’s e-Assessment Association and Soffed (a partner in the running of the Awards in Scotland). Judges were encouraged to see more use of student-centred approaches in this year’s entries, with plenty of examples of peer and collaborative methodes being employed. The overall standard was excellent, with a number of entries achieving a ‘Highly Commended’ award for their efforts.

NOTE: We will be adding details for each of the winning entries in the coming weeks.

	Using PeerWise for Formative Peer eAssessment in Introductory Physics Courses Physics Education Research Group, University of Edinburgh (L>R: Cliff Beevers, eAA; Karon McBride, University of Edinburgh)
	Foundations in Professionalism Module Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (L>R: Cliff Beevers, eAA; Margo Menzies, ACCA)
	Enhancing Practical Learning through Online Communities Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (L>R: Cliff Beevers, eAA; Gordon McLeod, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland)
	Helping to Raise Standards in Financial Advice Calibrand (L>R: Cliff Beevers, eAA; Geoff Chapman, Calibrand)
	Harnessing Social Web 2.0 Tools for Continuous e-Assessment of Language Learners University of Edinburgh (L>R: Cliff Beevers, eAA; Mourad Diouri, University of Edinburgh)

It was a very close-run thing in a number of categories, and although the winners above deserved the top spot, the judges felt that others needed to be recognised for the quality and innovation that their work over the last year displayed. Below, are a list of the ‘Highly Commended’ entries:

Use of ePortfolios for Assessment and Feedback in SQA Graded Unit Investigations Scottish Agricultural College Increasing Efficiency in Further Education through Skills Assessment Adam Smith College Harnessing Social Web 2.0 Tools for Continuous e-Assessment of Language Learners University of Edinburgh Assessment for Excellence Secondary 2 Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring (CEM), Durham University

2010 Winners

The second year of the Awards witnessed an impressive selection of entries from both the public and private sectors, with a significant rise in the number of submissions for certain categories such as Mobile e-Assessment.

The judging panel consisting of members of the UK’s e-Assessment Association and JISC Regional Support Centre Scotland North & East were encouraged to see strong entries in all the categories, suggesting that the technology that drives today’s assessments is improving year after year. With ever more examples of successful implementations coming to the fore, it becomes all the more difficult to pick out the few that stand out as potential winners of the Awards.

However, at the eAssessment Scotland 2010 conference in Dundee, six entries were finally chosen as being worthy winners of the Scottish e-Assessment Awards 2010. On hand to present the Awards was Cliff Beevers OBE, chair of the e-Assessment Association.

View the 2009 Winners here.

	Summative e-Assessment Award Winner Summative e-Assessment for Higher Mathematics SCHOLAR (L>R: Martyn Ware, SQA; Helen Ashton, SCHOLAR; Cliff Beevers; Oormi Khaled, Philip John, SCHOLAR)
	Formative e-Assessment Award Winner Use of i-assess in Formative e-Assessment EDI Livingston / Newcastle University School of Mathematics & Statistics (L>R: Mads Madsen, EDI; Cliff Beevers)
	Mobile e-Assessment Award Winner Instant Mobile Feedback for Community-based ESOL Stevenson College Edinburgh / Scotland’s Colleges / ipadio (L>R: Justin Sales, SCE; Cliff Beevers; Colin Buchanan, Scotland’s Colleges)
	Facilitating e-Assessment Award Winner Facilitating e-Assessment Adoption through Institutional Policy University of Dundee (L>R: David Walker, University of Dundee; Cliff Beevers)
	e-Portfolio Award Winner E-qual: Paperless Portfolio from DDL DDL Ltd. / Angus College (L>R: Lynne McBean, DDL Ltd.; Cliff Beevers; Margaret Pengelly, Kirsty Paterson, Angus College)
	Innovation Winner SMS Disaster Simulation University of Aberdeen (L>R: Phil Marston, University of Aberdeen; Cliff Beevers)

Scottish e-Assessment Awards 2010 - Highly Commended

	Highly Commended ePortfolio in Diagnostic Radiography: Supporting Professional Development Queen Margaret University (Alison Scott)
	Highly Commended Innovative Formative e-Assessment in the ESSQ Online Programme University of Edinburgh (Professor O.J. Garden)

2009 Winners

In the first year of the Awards, we were frankly surprised by the breadth of innovative and exciting e-Assessment practice that the call for entries unearthed. With entries from schools, colleges, universities, the health sector, companies and local councils, it soon became clear that the awards served not only to recognise excellence, but simply bring attention to the fact that Scotland was in many ways leading the way in adopting new assessment practices.

Formative e-Assessment (joint winner)	Formative e-Assessment (joint winner)	Summative e-Assessment	e-Portfolio /ePDP	e-Assessment Administration	Innovation
e-scape Scotland	Formative e-Assessment in Mathematics Using SCHOLAR	Free Text Response Progress Test	Embedding e-Portfolios in the FE Curriculum	Using e-Assessment in a Business Context	SIMPLE (SIMulated Professional Learning Environment)
University of Edinburgh	Hermitage Academy	Dundee Medical School	Dumfries & Galloway College	Scottish Water	University of Strathclyde