Assessment and Progression project - pilot update

Development for the Assessment and Progression project continued through the latter half of 2016. 

A number of the pilot schools used the tools to support January exam boards with over 1000 course results being processed and published to students using the new tools. We have recently completed a review with each of these schools to understand what further development is required to support the June exam diet. Encouragingly, we already had development planned for most areas for development that came up during the review. 

The feedback from the users of the system has been very positive. Some of the comments we received are:

- 'it was like a dream' (2 separate, identical comments from users in different schools!)

- 'the BIS report was great - we could use it without any reformatting for the board

- 'publishing the results was so much easier than currently'

- 'really easy to use'

- 'Feedback from my team on the project is that it has gone very well, with support provided by Student Systems excellent, prompt and always very helpful. We are very positive about the new system, and it has reduced workload considerably.'

- 'much better than SMART''

The project team continues with the development with the next major focus to provide tools to support the progression and classification boards in June.

In the meantime we are gearing up for the next set of schools to start using the system. From September 2016 17 schools will be using the tools to support assessment and progression and this should enable us to decommission SMART in December after the PGT classifcation boards are complete.  Training in course assessement setup has already started and we are liaising with all schools to ensure all have transition plans in place.

Alongside the development work Student Systems and Academic Services are working with colleagues from across the University to try to reduce the stress and heavy workload during the June exam diets. This is wide reaching, with potential changes to the Taught Assessment Regulations and deadlines for assessment related activities to simplify and standardise processes.  

Chris Giles

Project Manager

Student Systems Partnership