Overview
Background
1. This project supports the Assessement strand of the Student Systems Roadmap (http://www.studentsystems.ed.ac.uk/ed/aboutus/whatareweworkingon/Documents/Student_Systems_Roadmap_2.0.pdf).
2. Assessment & Progression has been identified as the number 1 priority by the Student Systems Board. The University currently administers assessment & progression through a variety of tools including SMART, EUCLID, local systems and the VLE.
2. CSPC approved the new Informing Students of their Final Programme, Course and Progression Results policy for 2014/15. (http://www.docs.sasg.ed.ac.uk/AcademicServices/Policies/Informing_Taught_Students_of_their_Final_Programme_Course_and_Progression_Results.pdf) . This clarifies the role of the student record in the relation to student’s assessment and progression administration.
4. The SMART system has been rolled out to more users over the last 2 academic years. The system is robust but further changes and enhancements to the system are no longer recommended. The system will reach the end of its life in the next couple of years.
This project has two strands:
1. Deliver tools to supporting the implementation of the ‘Informing Students of their Final Programme, Course and Progressions Results’ Policy with a focus on the ‘communication of all final progression decisions’
2. Develop Assessment and Progression capabilities within EUCLID to ultimately replace SMART and other School assessment systems.
Scope
The Assessment strand of the Student Systems Roadmap will be supported in 2014/15 by two pieces of work:
1. Implementation of the ‘Informing Students of their Final Programme, Course and Progression results’ policy
- Develop tools to enable Schools to record progression decisions onto the Student Record and publish to the Student EUCLID view so that students have a clear communication of their progression status.
2. Development of EUCLID Assessment and Progression tools.
The relevant EUCLID assessment and progression components have been purchased and this year we will concentrate on:
- Amending/refactoring the ‘out the box’ solutions to make them fit for our purpose
- Developing new functionality as required to support our assessment and progression exam board processes
- Establishing business processes to support the new system.
- Presenting assessment and progression to Students and relevant members of staff (e.g. Personal Tutors) in an effective way and in a timely manner.
SMART and other assessment systems are used for purposes other than recording assessmnt and calculating marks/progression/awards & classifications. These include maintenance of tutorial groups, recording submission of assessment. These will be investigated during the project and decisions will be taken on whether these need to be included in the project.
It is planned to rollout to a (to be defined) set of programmes for 2015/16.
It is planned that the work in 2014/15 for this strand will focus on undergraduates.
This is a multi-year project so further work will be completed during 2015/16.
Objectives
The objectives for the project are to address some of the Medium term aspirations for assessment & progression in the Student Systems Assessment and Progression roadmap:
1. Aspiration for Students
- A central place where summative assessment marks (components and course level) will be held, published and communicated regardless of which School the course resides in. This can include pre- and post-Board decisions. Other systems will hold partial information.
- Progression decisions and awards clearly communicated. The student record will be up to date and any actions students are required to take will be clearly communicated to them.
2. Aspiration for Staff
- Tools to record and communicate summative assessment marks to students with information on progression, reassessment and/or award.
- The sharing of information on student results across schools on one system.
- The provision of information to manage and support Exam Boards including recommendations on degree classifications and student progression.
- Providing Personal Tutors and other staff with access to student’s summative assessment profiles and where possible the full assessment picture.
- The provision of one place where students can be directed to get information on their summative assessment (historical and current) and information on release dates and processes.
- Clear visualisation of end-to-end business processes and systems with a high level of training, support and communication.
Deliverables
1. For ‘Informing Students of their Final Programme, Course and Progression results’, the following deliverables are envisaged:
- Input of progression decisions to EUCLID (including notes), similar to the approach used for awards;
- Automated notification to students of progression outcome;
- Display of progression outcome through EUCLID student view;
- Possible automated notification to students when final course results are entered into EUCLID.
2. For the development of EUCLID assessment and progression tools, the deliverables will be determined during analysis phase of the project but are likely to include the following.
For courses provide, functionality to support:
- Set-up of course components of summative assessment (with the intention of supporting down to question level)
- Recording of marks against each element of assessment
- Calculation of the total course marks based on assessment component definition and weighting
- Calculation of recommended progression/award
- Production of exam board papers
- Actual and agreed courses components and marks
- Display to Personal Tutors and other relevant staff
For progression and awards, provide functionality to support:
- The definition of progression rules for a programme;
- Production of exam board papers;
- Recommendation of progression and award/classification based on course marks and progression rules;
- Recording of agreed progression and award/classification with accompanying notes (as required);
- Publication of progression and awards.
- Display the following to students through EUCLID student view:
- Course component marks. This could include initial marks where appropriate as well as final agreed marks;
- Progression status and accompanying notes;
Alongside the software development, the project team will work with Schools to agree business processes for:
- Creation of assessment components (School);
- Definition, creation and validation of individual programme progression and award rules (possibly requiring Central oversight/support);
- Operational support during exam periods and throughout the year.
Provide clearly defined and delivered support and training during project period and during the embedding of processes and systems.
Benefits
The following main benefits were identified at the project inception meeting:
- Supporting feedback to students
- Consistent student experience
- More accurate information
- Frees up staff resource
Other benefits identified were:
- Earlier, wider, easier access to the information for students, personal tutors, school admin and student records team
- Reduce resource developing/maintaining local systems
- Fewer appeals, complaints and lower reputational risk through embedding of programme rules into the system
- A single, stable system.
Success Criteria
The following are indicative measures of success, measures will be developed as detailed scope of the project is clarified.
For strand 1:
- School staff are able to upload and key progression decisions for taught students (PGT and UG) from May 2015
- Each 'progressed' student has access to a clear communication of their progression status and any actions required through EUCLID student view.
- Staff can easily access a history of progression decisions for a student.
- Schools have clearly defined and agreed business processes for recording progression decisions.
- System response time is acceptable during peak exam periods
For strand 2:
- A pilot can be run in 2015/16 to support assessment and exam boards for a selected number of programmes/schools (to be determined during the project)
- The tools provided support the definition of assessment assessment structures, progression rules, award rules for the pilot programmes/schools
- The tools provided support the recording of marks, recommend progression and awards/classification, and the recording of agreed progression and award/classification decisions.
- Schools have clearly defined and agreed business processes the administration of assessment and exam boards
- For those students included in the pilot:
- Students can view their award, progression decision and course component marks (including pre-board where appropriate) through EUCLID
- Personal Tutors and other staff have a clear view of a student's award, progression decision history and course component marks (including pre-board where appropriate)
- System response time is acceptable during peak exam periods