Case study based design of prototype assessment application

When designing assessment mechanisms in higher education a number of challenges should be considered. Assessments must be designed carefully so that students understand what is expected of them and the criteria that will be used to mark them. They also expect timely and meaningful feedback both before and after the assessment cycle that they can use to inform their learning and gauge their level of achievement. Assessment criteria should be designed to be less subjective so that marking can be seen by students to be fair and so that a rationale for marks awarded is clear. If there is little evidence to demonstrate why a particular mark was awarded students may not trust the assessment mechanism. The issues affecting assessment design were investigated with the aim of developing a prototype application that could be used to aid in the design process and also to allow the assessments to be marked. Importantly the prototype is also able to generate a feedback report that clearly informs students of their level of achievement and provides them with both specific and generic feedback that they can use to inform their learning. The prototype was tested on the final year project unit of a computer networking degree programme. This report discusses the important challenges in designing assessments, how the prototype was informed by the issues and how it was tested within the unit at the centre of the case study.