{"id":166,"date":"2010-09-08T08:35:14","date_gmt":"2010-09-08T08:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/?p=166"},"modified":"2010-09-08T08:44:33","modified_gmt":"2010-09-08T08:44:33","slug":"do-we-know-what-we-mean-by-quality-in-e-assessment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/?p=166","title":{"rendered":"Do we know what we mean by ‘quality’ in e-assessment?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This was the topic of my roundtable at the Earli\/Northumbria Assessment Conference <\/a>and I am very grateful to the 10 people who attended one of the two wonderful discussions we had on the topic.<\/p>\n

The obvious answer is that, no, we don’t know what we mean by ‘quality’. We don’t even know what we mean by ‘e-assessment’, Having discussed this a bit, we moved on to discuss\u00a0different aspects of ‘quality’. I note that both groups, whilst mentioning that validity and reliability are important, also emphasised the role of e-assessment in transforming learning, in particular through its ability to provide instantaneous feedback.<\/p>\n

Words that experts use in the context of ‘quality’ in e-assessment include (in no particular order):<\/p>\n

Reliable, Accurate, Valid, Effective,\u00a0Practical (i.e. cost-effective), Consistent, Equitable, Secure, Technically reliable, User-friendly, Accessible, Appropriately aligned, Authentic, Authenticated (Plagiarism-proof), Transparent (students know what they are expected to do), Engaging, Satisfying, Appropriate to medium, At appropriate level,Feedback-rich, Relevant, Timely\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Interviews with students lead me to think that they regard the following as particularly\u00a0important:<\/p>\n