Modernising assessment

I came across an interesting paper recently relating to the assessment of Web 2.0 (social media) in universities. The paper is entitled Worth it? Findings from a study of how academics assess students' Web 2.0 activities and was published in the February 2012 edition of Research in Learning Technology. The full paper can be downloaded here.

The paper points out that the use of social media for assessment was limited. When it was used, it was used for low- or mid-stakes assessment. The most common technologies were blogs and wikis. And the subjects that used it most were Social Science, IT, and Education. Its conclusion was not good:

"Web 2.0 cannot be seen to be transforming assessment. On the contrary, its affordances are being appropriated to perpetuate conventional, invisible assessment practices."

The use of Web 2.0 in assessment is a professional interest of mine. My paper on modernising assessment was referenced in this research.

I suspect that practice in FE in the UK is no better and, possibly, worse. One of the goals of the HN Review is to improve assessment. I plan to look at ways that we could utilise some of the affordances of social media to do this. Look out for more information on an "HN 2.0" project in the near future.