Assessment tasks

No task is perfect. When planning an assessment item, you may wish to consider if your task is:

• Valid – assessing what you want to assess. What will you be able to see in the student work? What are you actually asking students to do? What is the hard, intellectual work in the task? What skills, knowledge, etc. are you aiming to measure/see in this task? How will you be able to judge the quality of this work? How will you grade this work?
• Reliable – assessing the same thing of each student. What skills, knowledge and resources do students need to complete the task?
• Practical – the time and resources available for your team and students to complete the task, mark the task and engage with feedback. 
• Relevant – for your students, so they see the benefits of completion.
• Encouraging integrity – how does your task influence students’ approaches to academic integrity?
• Supporting learning in your course – how will the task drive learning as students complete the task and impact learning throughout the course?

Are you using the best type of assessment task for what you want to achieve? Can you make the task more authentic or switch to a more authentic assessment approach?

Dr Mair Underwood led the development of a UQ Assessment Ideas Factory which features a broad range of assessment tasks to explore, including:

• written
• problem-based
• group work
• active learning
• presentation
• reflective
• collaborative
• work-integrated
• multimodal.

UQ Assessment Ideas Factory

ePortfolios are digital repositories of learning artefacts that students can use to show evidence of learning outcomes and/or competencies. When used for assessment, they provide a space to track and support student development beyond single learning instances to achieve the cross-discipline or programmatic assessment while supporting identity-verified assessment and the curation of feedback.

Affordances of using ePortfolios

• Supports Work Integrated Learning (WIL) through linking students and educators to the industry while capturing a diversity of experiences.
• Facilitates reflective practice through structured written or video reflections.
• Supports self and peer assessment.
• Enables the linking of course learning outcomes to employability skill or professional competency development.
• Supports flexible and student-driven assessment.
• Supports dialogic feedback practices and progressive assessment.
• Provides a platform for students to develop their brand and articulate their professional identity and narrative. 

Considerations

When implementing an ePortfolio in your course or program, consider the following:

• What is the purpose of the ePortfolio? This purpose must be made explicit to the students.
• What do you want the students to be able to demonstrate through their ePortfolio?
• What scale and criteria will be used for the assessment task, and how will they align to course learning outcomes, graduate attributes and/or competencies?

ePortfolio pedagogical support

The ITaLI ePortfolio Learning Designer, in conjunction with your Digital Learning Uplift or designated school/faculty-based Learning Designer are your first point of contact and will assist in designing your ePortfolio tasks to support your teaching practices. If the purpose of the ePortfolio is to capture employability development within your course, consider also contacting the UQ Employability Centre. If you are unsure where to start, you can email Shari Bowker (s.bowker@uq.edu.au).

Technology and student support

UQ uses the Anthology (formally Chalk & Wire) ePortfolio as its enterprise solution. Students can choose from several free tools on the market to create ePortfolio websites (e.g. Wix, Weebly, WordPress, Google Sites). However, as these are not UQ-hosted or centrally-supported through eLearning and AskUS, please consider all support implications, possible costs and privacy factors.

How to implement UQ ePortfolio

You can submit a request to meet the ePortfolio Learning Designer. Support is available throughout the process, including designing ePortfolio tasks, configuring the platform, training and ongoing inquiries.

ePortfolios Australia 
ePortfolios Australia is a professional network that aims to support the use of e-portfolio practice in Australia and beyond through professional development, research activities and the sharing of resources, ideas and practice.

International Journal of ePortfolio (IJeP)
The International Journal of ePortfolio (IJeP) is a double-blind, peer-reviewed, open-access journal freely available online.

AAEEBL: Association for Authentic, Experiential, and Evidence-Based Learning
This association hosts news, events and resources on their website, including a Field Guide to ePortfolio.

Employability Digital Essentials Module at UQ library
UQ Library hosts a series of online modules for students to enhance their employability.