Introduction

Background

Monash has fundamentally transformed students’ demonstration of learning with the introduction of our enterprise electronic assessments (eAssessment). This solution addresses the twin goals of meeting community expectations of flexibility and authenticity in tertiary assessment while simultaneously enhancing our students’ educational experience.

Significant environmental and cost benefits have been achieved from this innovation.

Modernising assessment, at scale, across all disciplines is the cornerstone of our eAssessment program. Students and academics have partnered closely in the design and rollout of this initiative, including the development of the user interface, assessment processes, and training materials.

eAssessment has facilitated a bold transition away from paper-based summative assessment to a rich, innovative ecosystem of electronic question types. It has greatly expanded the possibilities for academics and students to assess and articulate student learning, providing a suite of authentic assessment tools aligned with discipline and community discipline expectations. Through the creative, authentic approach afforded by eAssessment, students can clearly articulate the value and skills gained from a university education – which is of critical and increasing importance to Australian society.

Approach

Built on a robust evidence base, eAssessment has been embraced by all disciplines of study and has between 2018 and July 2020, hosted in excess of 161,300 individual sittings, with over 600 students engaging with academics to co-create a range of modern assessment methods. The use of eAssessment has enabled the University to use learning analytics to better understand the dynamics of student learning in real-time. It has also created significant, lasting efficiencies by reducing the University’s reliance on paper, enabling Monash academics to employ richer assessment techniques, minimizing human error, and achieving financial savings.

The core elements of our eAssessment approach include:

Real world focus

Academics have embraced the challenge of creating assessment tasks that are geared closely around community expectations and pioneering the use of digital technologies such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence.

Co-creation

Students and academics engaged in shaping the most effective ways to test knowledge, and co-design the assessment interface.

Agility

Employing an iterative, rigorous approach to the planning and delivery of eAssessment at scale; involving quality assurance, risk planning and scheduling. This has involved the close and sustained collaboration of professional staff and academics.

Best practice

By drawing on high-quality expertise in relation to data security, privacy, assessment reliability and modality. A significant achievement of eAssessment has been to accelerate the University’s efforts to transform assessment from ‘in-semester and exam’ to a cycle of continuous assessment, thereby improving alignment with learning outcomes.

Introducing eAssessments at Monash

Purpose

This Playbook is designed to assist in the implementation and adoption of the eAssessment solution. It is a comprehensive guide inclusive of a solution overview, business process recommendations, use case scenarios, resourcing recommendations, business readiness, and effective change management approaches.

While each institution should tailor their implementation and adoption to their organisation’s specific use case, operating model, and desired outcomes, this playbook offers both guidance and lessons learned from the considerable use of this solution to date at Monash over the last 2 years..

Effective adoption of these recommendations will optimize implementation, adoption and outcomes, while assisting to minimise risks. A set of holistic principles, practises and strategies pertaining to best practices for running remote exams.

Solution Overview

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Simplified flow:

View the detailed flow diagram here

Business Process Model

Pre-examination activities

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Intra-exam activities

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Post-exam activities

Ongoing activities

Recommended staff ratio guidelines

Based on the assumption that one invigilator oversees 2-3 students at one time, it is recommended that a group have a maximum of 30 invigilators. The following guidelines should be followed:

eAssessment Playbook – Sandbox

Contents