Reducing assessment

One of the key goals of the HN Review was to reduce the amount of assessment in the awards. So the unit writers were under strict instructions to minimise assessment, while maintaining national standards. I think that we achieved that with the HNC. The number of assessments in the mandatory units of the new award is 55% lower than the existing award. We have also significantly reduced assessment in the optional units.

We are also looking at some radical solutions to this problem. The HN 2.0 project is looking at how we can use social software for summative assessment in the new HNC. The project has coined two new terms: social assessment and smart assessment. Social assessment is how social media can be used for summative assessment. Smart assessment is how smartphones can be used to generate evidence. We hope that combining social assessment and smart assessment we can hugely decrease the time spent on assessment, and make assessment a more natural part of the learning process. For example, we are exploring ways of integrating all of the assessment in the mandatory units of the HNC into a couple of activities using social/smart assessment techniques. This represents a radical departure from the traditional approach.

The HN 2.0 project will produce a report that will describe these ideas in more detail, and a new assessment exemplar that will turn the theory into a practical assessment. The traditional assessments will still be available to use, although much reduced, but this more radical approach will also be an option.

Look out for more details shortly.