Evaluation & Assessment Services

For future qualitative assessment and evaluation, more creativity will be necessary. An increasingly holistic approach is necessary in which a broader assessment of all learning activities plays a role besides other qualities of the learner, such as didactical or societal involvement.

There is a need for transparency. It is important to making knowledge and skills visible. Most existing systems consist of formal educational degrees. Accreditation for jobs requires enrollment in formal programs based on prescribed curricula. Formal systems do not show the learning path the individual has been following. Neither do they show many of the informal skills which have been required nor the motivation and the social skills. Digital literacies are often not captured by formal degrees. Multiple assessors would make the systems more attuned to the needs of the “real” world.

Pressures for performance resulted in the measurement “fad” and in the ranking “game” in tertiary education and in other types of education.

For instance, measurement and ranking play an important role in emphasizing the importance of research. It is necessary to improve the systems for research assessment and to find alternatives for rankings. The motives are complex and methodological issues need to be resolved.

The Research Assessment Exercise (UK) has influenced the evaluation systems for research in many countries, although the forms of review vary considerably (David, 2008). According to Henkel (1999) the system had a profound implication for the academic profession because it unsettled the existing relationships between individual academics, the discipline, the department and the institution.

The virtual university UOC organised its first international seminar on Higher Education Rankings and E-learning on September 22-23, 2011. One of the issues discussed was why university rankings do not include online education in their studies. Parameters to be used for ranking online universities were proposed.

We can offer you an analysis of your assessment and evaluation system and find new ways to make knowledge and skills visible at individual or at system level - not only in the area of Higher Education.

We have been inspired by the Mozilla Open Badge Project and by the Ph D thesis of Anne-Marie De Jonghe.

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