Technology and Education Research Group

Assessing ‘alternative media’ elements: is there a generic model?

(Submitted by Soraya, Judith and Clem)

During the production of T215 ‘Communication and Information Technologies’, the Module Team developed a new assessment model which is applied on each of the five TMAs.  This assessment model seems interesting because it is used for both text-based and multimedia-based assessment elements so it provides a consistent framework within which students can work and critique their own assessment outputs. We are interested in investigating how non-text assessment media ( such as video, PowerPoint presentations, podcasts, group working …etc) are assessed in other STEM modules and whether T215’s assessment model could be applied equally as well in these other contexts too.

 From previous discussions we had with other module teams across the faculty it emerged that they often struggle to develop an appropriate assessment model for non-text assignments. In this project we seek to:

• bring together the body of relevant knowledge that is emerging as new technology provides opportunities for more innovative assessment
• investigate the feasibility of developing a common model that can be applied across a range of assessments using different media on other modules.

 Our work initially would be to conduct a survey of the assessment models of STEM modules in the Open University that include alternative media assessment elements. We would then explore whether T215’s assessment framework could be applied in the assessment on these other modules or whether another generic model might emerge from our work. If a generic model can be developed module teams would not need to spend time developing new strategies for assessment resulting in improved efficiency and cost effectiveness in line with the OU’s strategic objectives.

This proposal has been accepted in broad terms but requires some development . The eSTEeM team consider it a little too restrictive and they advise us to “explore other domains where assessment of these materials is more commonplace”.  So we are asked to “redefine and broaden the scope of your initial research before converging on the STEM subjects”.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 21st, 2011 at 4:49 pm by JudithW and is filed under Funding, Projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.