Our Work

Assessment Standards Knowledge Exchange (ASKe)

Description

ASKe’s work focused on further developing ways of helping both staff and students reach a shared understanding of academic standards by building on and promulgating good practice.

Contact: Dr Rebecca Bryant, Centre Manager

Telephone: 01865 485673

Summary Aims:

Initially, the majority of this development took place within the Business School at Brookes, but increasingly there was support for development across the whole university and beyond.

Assessment standards guide and mould student learning both in terms of what they must do and how well they must do it, yet students often claim to be unsure about expectations. Research at the Business School has proven that sharing tacit, alongside explicit, knowledge of standards significantly improves students’ academic performance. ASKe spread this innovative practice and pioneered the cultivation of an assessment community with students, pre-HE & HE staff, alumni, and employers as active partners. The community was nurtured by the creation of a bespoke ‘social learning space’ and socialisation processes that moved beyond a focus on assessment techniques to a more holistic perspective in which assessment’s position as central to learning is fully exploited.

Projects:

The work of the Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange was organised into three strands of activity:

Strand 1: Replication of Proven Practice
The aim of this strand was to disseminate and embed current good practice more widely both inside and outside Brookes via:

• A pre-assessment intervention which the ASKe team has shown works. A simple intervention such as a marking workshop prior to undertaking an assessment task can significantly increase students’ understanding of the assessment criteria and improve their performance of the task.
  
• The Academic Conduct Officer (ACO) system which the ASKe team helped develop, in addition to researching effective ways of encouraging and promoting academic integrity.
  
• The Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) programme, long used by the Business School, which was extended to cover 20 modules in the school by summer 2007. Support was then be offered to help at least three other schools introduce PAL.

Strand 2: Development of pioneering Practice
This strand moved beyond the established practice of strand 1, with ASKe funding appropriate development projects, first within the Business School and later across the whole university. These projects sought out and supported ways to develop and enhance assessment practices. Funded projects included:

• How a diverse group of markers for a distance-learning course might share ideas on marking and assessment standards.
  
• How to help markers judge coursework from non-native English speakers.
  
• Investigation of the impact of high-energy, actor-led workshops on students’ presentation skills.

Strand 3: Cultivating a Community of Practice
This strand included the development of a brand-new building, which provided a physical environment to support student learning outside structured class time, and in which staff and students could meet to develop a shared understanding of academic standards. The ASKe team argues that only a true community of practice will ensure shared understanding, so ASKe (in conjunction with other parties at Brookes) developed the social environment necessary to colonise the physical space, once built.

What is being offered to the wider teaching/subject community:

• The ASKe Newsletter was a useful source of information about current and future developments.
  
• The ASKe team offered workshops and consultancy on issues relating to assessment.
• ASKe produced a series of '1,2,3' leaflets which highlight some practical ways in which teaching staff could improve their students' learning. Visit the ASKe website for further information.

Events:

An annual conference, run jointly with the Reinvention Centre, on social learning space.

Organisations / Institutions

Oxford Brookes University

Related documents/URLs

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