assessment
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10 PhD Viva tips from an examiner
I did a mock viva for someone recently, and I shared lots of my views on a successful viva based ion examining around 50 PhDs over the years, so I thought I’d share them here. This relates to the UK viva system, which is usually an open-ended defence, with two examiners discussing the thesis with the candidate. Things vary quite differently elsewhere. These are obviously just my views, and I’m generally a ‘nice’ examiner, I want people to enjoy the experience and to pass. Most examiners I’ve met are the same, but one does hear the occasional horror story. So here’s my top ten tips: Just my experience of course,…
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25+ Years of Ed Tech: 2022 – AI Generated Content
via GIPHY Despite the book 25 Years of Ed tech finishing with 2018, I’ve kept it going with one entry for each year since. The criteria for selection was the year I think they became significant, in that people talked about them a lot. And your annual reminder that inclusion does not denote approval (some people struggle with this). So, AI generated content eh? The year started with fun AI generated images and ended with ChatGPT promising the end for humanity as we know it. This can produce genuinely decent outputs, and so the phase of just dismissing it as inferior is not a valid approach. The obvious potential victim of decent AI…
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The tricky questions for assessment to answer
Assessment as we know it (Jim) is facing, or about to face, something of a perfect storm of crisis. Here are some of the factors bearing down on it. Post pandemic shift to online – during the pandemic most HEIs shifted to online exams. These come in different formats: standard exam essays with anything from 24 hours to 3 weeks to complete; timed ‘real time’ exams over three hours or so; proctored online exams; multiple choice and other automatic assessment. It turns out that students prefer this form of exam, and many HEIs have decided to stick with it going forward. In some research conducted at the OU, comparing the…
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Good online learning – assessment
One of the potentially positive aspects of the online pivot has been the manner in which it has forced educators and institutions to at least consider whether the face to face exams is the only method of assessment. Even quite conventional universities have decided that online exams (eg giving students a set time period to complete essays which can range from a few hours to a few weeks) is going to be the default mode from now on. In less imaginative forms this has has taken the form of remote proctored exams, with AI or remote proctoring replacing the exam invigilator. This is problematic in a number of ways I…
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OU drop-in – Assessment issues
As part of the pandemic response I’ve been running informal weekly drop-in sessions offering Open University experience to the sector as colleagues in other universities seek to shift to an online & distance mode of education. Last week we focused on assessment. This is not really my area of expertise, but I’ve developed enough courses and we had sufficient others in the webinar to make it a useful discussion. Amongst the topics we looked at were: Is this the end of exams as we know it? Moving to project based assessment Demands to retain exams (eg professional bodies) Ungrading eportfolios Plagiarism/cheating The video (with me attempting to use the Question…
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25 Years of EdTech: 2019 – Micro-credentials
This is year 27 in my 25 Years of Ed Tech series (no – YOU do the math). The book is scheduled to come out next year, but I thought I’d add one for this year which won’t make it in to that. For 2019 the educational technology I would choose would be micro-credentials. I was at OpenEd and WCOL conferences recently, and micro-credentials were a common topic, plus in my place of work, IET at the Open University, we are busy developing courses for these. So it seems I can’t turn anywhere at the moment without bumping into them. Micro-credentials are smaller, certified chunks of learning, often allied to…
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Quality is the best gaming device
[There are some games you shouldn't play – image http://www.flickr.com/photos/whatwhat/8457309/] Gamification comes up a lot in higher education. It's a by-product of a metrics driven economy, as soon as you meaure something, and add value to that measurement, then people will find ways to gamify it. The measurers often know this, and the trick is if you can get people to do the desired behaviour through gaming, then it's worthwhile, for instance good assessment will mean that learners end up acquiring desired skills and knowledge, even if they game the system. But too often, gaming itself becomes the focus. The following are all aspects of gaming for higher education: Assessment…
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MixedInk – affordances for collaboration?
From the always useful Jane's elearning picks I came across MixedInk. It's a tool to promote collaboration to produce joint documents. Before you raise eyebrows and say 'not another one,' bear with me. It has some neat features – you are working towards a definite goal document, it has time limits to focus effort, but most intriguingly it positively wants you to take and adapt the text of other writers. As you type it finds similar phrases from other contributers, and you can add these in. Each submission can be voted on, so you can see which are the most popular/useful. And then when the document is finalised it shows…
