University of South Wales

Learning and Corporate Support Services

Online Assessment

To support the Learning, Teaching and Assessment Strategy 2007–12, the University of Glamorgan Directorate has made an institutional commitment for the future development of online assessment across all the faculties and in all schemes.

This is encouraged and supported through the Online Assessment Project with a range of staff development activities.

Online Assessment Guidelines for Staff

There are many benefits of online assessment for learners and academic staff; some of the key points include:

  • There is a varied range of available question types which allows for flexible assessment design.
  • Large banks of questions can be developed.
  • Students can access tests at any time and in any place.
  • Short tests with instant feedback allow students to independently check their knowledge and understanding.
  • Some tools allow sophisticated quantitative and qualitative analysis of questions and student responses.
  • Objective tests are machine marked, thereby reducing the marking load for tutors.
  • Online assessment can prove a powerful motivational factor for students.

For more information, read the full Staff Guidelines for Online Assessment.

How can we support you?

The Blended Learning Suppport Team in LCSS, together with Corporate Training, is working in conjunction with the Centre for Learning & Teaching (CELT) to promote the use of online assessment and to offer opportunities for academic staff to develop the relevant knowledge and expertise.

Some of you will be new to online assessment, some may already be using Blackboard tools to achieve this; for all academic staff, there is also now the opportunity to access a more sophisticated tool, Questionmark Perception (QMP).

Resources and regular staff development activities are being offered to assist staff in exploring how useful online assessment can be and to provide the skills to utilise it effectively.

To identify whether Blackboard or QMP will best meet your requirements, you will need to be familiar with the information and resources which we have provided on the Glamorgan Online Assessment website. This collaborative website is designed to support you from many perspectives. It should help those of you who are new to this area to have the confidence to make a start, while for those of you already incorporating online assessment it should help to further your existing knowledge within this area.

QMP is also supported through two training sessions covering ‘Authoring’ and ‘Deployment and Reporting’. To attend these development sessions you will need to first work through the information on the Glamorgan Online Assessment website.

We will also be offering ad hoc Workshops from time to time, addressing queries on using either QMP or the Blackboard assessment tools.

To get started, check out our regular QMP training opportunities.

Please visit the the new Technology-enhanced Academic Channel. This brings together a range of information, advice and resources about how you can make the most effective use of technology within your teaching practice, including Blackboard, online assessment, Web 2.0, audio and video.

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