{"id":1482,"date":"2013-07-11T16:49:54","date_gmt":"2013-07-11T16:49:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/?p=1482"},"modified":"2013-07-11T16:49:54","modified_gmt":"2013-07-11T16:49:54","slug":"staff-engagement-with-e-assessment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/?p=1482","title":{"rendered":"Staff engagement with e-assessment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/PICT0183.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1483\" title=\"Grand Harbour Hotel and Fed Funnel (IoW) Ferry\" src=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/PICT0183-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/PICT0183-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/PICT0183.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>More reflections from <a href=\"http:\/\/caaconference.co.uk\/\">CAA2013<\/a>\u00a0(held in Southampton, just down the road from the Isle of Wight ferry terminal &#8211; shown)&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>In the opening keynote, Don Mackenzie talked about the &#8216;rise and rise of multiple-choice questions&#8217;. This was interesting, because he was talking in the context of more innovative question types having been used back in the 1997s than are used now. I wasn&#8217;t working in this area in the 1997s so I don&#8217;t know what things were like then, but somehow what Don said didn&#8217;t surprise me.<\/p>\n<p>Don went on to itentify three questions that each of us should ask ourselves, implying that these were the stumbling blocks to better practice. The questions were:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Have you got the delivery system that you need?<\/li>\n<li>Have you got the institutional support that you need?<\/li>\n<li>Have you got the peer support that you need?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I wouldn&#8217;t argue with those, but I think I can say &#8216;yes&#8217; to all three in the context of my own work &#8211; so why aren&#8217;t we doing better?<\/p>\n<p>I think I&#8217;d identify two further issues:<\/p>\n<p>1. It takes time to write good questions and this needs to be recognised by all parties;<\/p>\n<p>2. There is a crying need for better staff development.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;d like to pursue the staff development theme I little more. I think there is a need firstly for academics to appreciate that they can and should\u00a0&#8216;do better&#8217; (otherwise people do what is easy and we end up with lots of multiple-choice questions, and not necessarily even good multiple-choice questions), but then we need to find a way of teaching people how to do better. In my opinion this is about engaging academics not software developers &#8211; and in the best possible world the two would work together to design good assessments. That means that staff development is best delivered by people who actually use e-assessment in their teaching i.e. people like me. The problem is that people like me are busy doing their own job so don&#8217;t have any time to advise others. Big sigh. Please someone, find a solution &#8211; it is beyond me.<\/p>\n<p>I ended up talking a bit about the need for staff development in my own presentation &#8216;Using e-assessment to learn about learning&#8217; and in her closing address Erica Morris pulled out the following themes from the conference:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Ensuring student engagement<\/li>\n<li>Devising richer assessments<\/li>\n<li>Unpacking feedback<\/li>\n<li>Revisiting frameworks and principles<\/li>\n<li>and&#8230; Extending staff learning and development<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I agree with Erica entirely, I just wonder how we can make it happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More reflections from CAA2013\u00a0(held in Southampton, just down the road from the Isle of Wight ferry terminal &#8211; shown)&#8230; In the opening keynote, Don Mackenzie talked about the &#8216;rise and rise of multiple-choice questions&#8217;. This was interesting, because he was &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/?p=1482\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[133,289],"tags":[287,434],"class_list":["post-1482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conferences","category-staff-development","tag-caa-2013","tag-staff-development"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1482"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1484,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1482\/revisions\/1484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}