Enhancing the e-assessment process in a mobile world: Developments at UCS

JISC RSC Eastern, e-assessment Showcase

30th March, 2012

Andy Ramsdena.ramsden@ucs.ac.uk

http://a.ucs.ac.uk/elevate

elevate@ucs.ac.uk

Twitter: ucselevate

What you will hopefully get

Awareness of some small scale pilot studies at UCS

what we are doing what we have learnt where we are going next

Opportunity to try

Context of use @ UCS

Existing studentsCurrent technologies

New studentsCurrent technologies

Existing studentsNew technologies

New studentsNew technologies

• An iPad in the hands of a lecturer

• QR Code Quiz for Field based study

Gartner: Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle

Location aware learning activity: Focus on enhancing Feedback

Why?

A low threshold application is a teaching/learning application of information technology that is reliable, accessible, easy to learn, non-intimidating and inexpensive.

They have observable positive consequences and contributes to important long term changes in teaching and/or learning” Steve Gilbert, http://www.tltgroup.ors.html [accessed: 31/10/11]

Location aware learning at a low cost …

Learning Design Sequence: What they do

Group activity in costal area

Question & Answers in Field study centre

Support support in groups on the technology

Put up posters around the coastal study area

Results from server

Group results uploaded to server

Generate PDF posters

Create questions and youtube feedback

In the field

In the study centre

What do we all get?

Where next with QR Code Formative Quiz (next 3 months)

Software

• Integrate with UCS ShortURL & QR Code Generator • SourceForge and share for feedback

Future pilots

• Recruit more pilot groups

An iPad in the hands of a lecturer: Focus on enhancing Feedback

Why?

http://www.shinyshiny.tv/2010/03/ipad_sofa_gadget.htmlhttp://www.ictcool.com/category/pgce-week-02/

High barriers to entry Low barriers to entry

“marking any more than a handful of papers at a PC gets pretty uncomfortable pretty quickly whereas the tablet is much easier to use” – Lecturer, UCS (March, 2012)

Orthodox Model Media Tablet Model

E-feedback: Generic: ShowMe

Rearranging a 3 variable equation – the triangle rule : http://www.showme.com/sh/?h=87XHDbE - Gavin Devereux (School of Science Technology & Health)

Scenario: mark a large number of scripts, and you wish to feedback to all students some generic issues

The workflow: who does what (ShowMe)?

E-feedback: Individual: iAnnotate

Scenario: making individual e-feedback more effective, and opening up the opportunities of individual audio & visual feedback

Mandy Gault (School of Science Technology & Health)

The workflow: who does what (iAnnotate)?

Staff Feedback

What do we need to do to improve the process?

- A clear process circulated and communicated to all involved (seems to be some ambiguity)- A simple way to prevent documents changing (e.g. figures disappearing) when opened in iAnnotate- Ability to install Dropbox on my computer (probably one for IT...)- Ensuring that the student numbers are visible on file names (e.g. at the start) would be helpful for both the lecturers and me- Ability to batch upload annotated scripts and marks

- Difficult to use your finger as a pen

Do you think it is worth exploring this approach further?

- I think it seems to be the way forward for online assessment and the online feedback

- Definitely worth exploring, I think the tablets have a lot of potential once we get used to integrating them within the marking and feedback process.

- Much easier to use than the alternative on-line marking system, as too many clicks to actually get to the document via the Wolsey gradebook link. In addition, you can annotate the script with iannotate, and cannot do this on the PC laptop. It would be worth exploring further, but the process need to be much quicker to actually be as good as paper marking.

Student Feedback

To what extent would you agree with the following statement – the ability to receive my feedback as an annotated PDF via my Wolsey (LearnUCS) course is absolutely brilliant

Strongly agree - 0Agree – 2Neutral – 5Disagree – 4Strongly Disagree - 0

Good concept of utilising online resources to provide feedback, however, the feedback is very hard to read due to the writing on the PDF looking like it had been written in microsoft paint

Good to get feedback online instead of paper format, but sometimes confusing what parts of my work the speech bubbles where pointing too. Confusing whether it was crosses or ticks through my work

Take time to check which points relate to the feedback at the bottom of the screen. Would be easier to hover over the point and look at the feedback on he same page

Where next with media tablets (next 3 months)

Hardware

• Explore iPad3 • Stylus technology

Software

• Explore software apps which will make cut & paste from comment banks• Staff advice around accurate annotations / writing• Installation and management processes of key software at UCS

Process

• Feed into a recommendations to UCS Exec & LTAG around e-submission and e-feedback policy at UCS

Thanks & Questions

Andy Ramsdena.ramsden@ucs.ac.uk

http://a.ucs.ac.uk/elevate

elevate@ucs.ac.uk

Twitter: ucselevate