"Assessment is often viewed as a series of one-off events. This means that learners do not always benefit from feedback, they lack a sense of progress and self-reliance is not encouraged. This project will reconceptualise assessment from the perspective of an assessment career and use this to transform our institution's assessment processes. Like a working career, an assessment career develops through a series of related events that join up to give a coherent and progressive pathway that is self-directed."
(Gwyneth Hughes, Research Portal, Institute of Education, University of London)
"For the 2012 / 13 academic year, NTU is introducing a new scheme for assessing undergraduate students' work. The scheme is known as grade–based assessment or GBA.
A major advantage of GBA is that it ensures that there is a direct link between the expected learning outcomes of the part of the course being assessed and what you, the student, have demonstrated in the assessment. This short video explains this.
The specific arrangements relating to the assessment of a module will be set out in module documentation. Previously, assessed work was awarded a mark, usually a percentage. Following the introduction of GBA, each piece of assessed work will be awarded one of 17 grades.
You will be informed about what is expected of you in order to achieve a particular grade. This information will mean that feedback on your work will be clear and you will be able to evaluate your progress towards your final degree classification."
(Nottingham Trent University)
[This animated presentation provides an overview of the grade–based marking scheme which is being introduced at Nottingham Trent University for the 2012 / 13 academic year. The presentation is clearly aimed at NTU students (and refers to the university–specific VLE called the "NOW" – the "NTU Online Workspace"), despite this the clip covers issues which I expect have more general relevance to students studying at other institutions.]