Strand Four

In working towards our overall aim of improvement in student learning ASKe recognises the need to work with a range of stakeholders and interested parties. To bring about change, a range of strategies and activities have been invoked in order to reach and communicate with national policy makers, senior management, educational change agents, teaching and support staff and, of course, students.

Using an evidence-based scholarly approach, all aspects of the work of ASKe are drawn together, synergistically, to seek to persuade that change is necessary, to facilitate change through providing models and cases that illustrate new practice and supporting change processes and to work collaboratively with others seeking change and improvement.

Please visit the links below for further information and to follow progress on these activities.

Assessment Standards Manifesto
With the aim of bringing about fundamental change in the way assessment is viewed and approached, ASKe has worked with a large group of (inter)national experts on assessment to produce an Assessment Standards Manifesto for Change.

Feedback: An Agenda for Change
Repeating the successful process used to produce the Manifesto (above), a group of 23 researchers and writers with specialist expertise in assessment feedback, known as the Osney Grange Group, have produced a 5 point Agenda for Change, to be used to inform national and institutional assessment policy and feedback practices in the Higher Education sector.

Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills (IUSS) Select Committee
ASKe contributed to the IUSS Select Committee inquiry into "Students and Universities", during December 2008, and made a number of practical recommendations regarding the degree classification for inclusion in the Committee's final report.  ASKe Directors, Margaret Price and Chris Rust, were subsequently invited, as part of a panel, to give oral evidence to the Committee when it visited Oxford Brookes in March 2009.

Brookes Assessment Compact
Based on the work of ASKe, the University’s Academic Enhancement and Standards Committee (AESC) have agreed the Brookes Assessment Compact which was implemented in September 2009.  ASKe, together with the Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development (OCSLD), to support the implementation of the Compact are offering Course Design Intensives to Programme teams in all OBU Schools.

1,2,3 Leaflets
Our collaborative work with HE Academy Subject Centres has resulted in a range of outputs such as practitioner workshops, articles for magazines and conference presentations. To aid change agents and provide practical help for practitioners we have produce a range of 1,2,3 leaflets, based on evidence, which provide easy steps to improve assessment practices.

In addition we undertake activities and initiatives within individual institutions (both at HE and FE level) including our home institution, Brookes.  Apart from many workshops and presentations we also produce reports and academic papers setting out underpinning rationales for change including a position paper setting out the complexity of assessment issues and proposing a range of ideas and actions.