1. Patrick Grant Enriching Assessment with e-Portfolios
ePortfolio conference 2005, Cambridge
OCR
Patrick Grant, e-assessment Manager
October 2005

2. Contents OCR background Maintaining quality e-portfolio trial
Impact on qualification design and development
Maintaining standards during transition
What’s in it for me (who am I?)

3. OCR
Part of the Cambridge Assessment Group (Gold Sponsors for this event)
One of the UK’s leading awarding bodies
Partnerships with over 13,000 educational establishments
Formed in 1998 from University of Cambridge Local Examination Syndicate and RSA
General and vocational qualifications
First to offer GCSEs in vocational subjects
First to incorporate internet working into IT qualifications

4. Maintaining Quality
“Ensuring the validity, robustness and reliability of assessment is essential in developing and maintaining qualifications to ensure that students’ achievements are recognised as formal, qualitative awards”

5. Maintaining Quality Assessment: Valid, Robust, Reliable
Remove the need to make students’ work ‘paper ready’
Focus on the work, not the process
Appropriate format of work
Seen as it was meant to be seen

6. e-portfolio trial [1] Objective
Evaluate how e-portfolios are used for high stakes qualifications
GCSE ICT
Identify impact on the assessment process
Research the effect on the assessment decisions
Comparability
Product / Supplier
MAPS / TAG Learning Limited

7. e-portfolio trial [2] Approach Moderation Paper selection Schools x 4
Coursework
Coursework assessed
(virtually)
Grading
Create control group
>200 pupils
Output
‘e’ selection
Evaluation report

8. e-portfolio trial [3] Outcomes Accessibility Cultural impacts
Comparability
Assessment decisions
Engage the learner
Enabling richer assessment

9. Qualification design
Impact on the design and development of qualifications
Work in electronic format is relevant to the student
Capturing work electronically allows more diverse evidence
Animations, working web pages, audio, video
Removes the paper constraints
Enables richer, more appropriate, assessment
‘e’ flavoured qualifications
CLAiT 2006
Highest achieving vocational ICT qualification

10. Quality Assurance in the present
Coping with the transition
Not everyone is ready
No discrimination – accessibility for all
Dual processes, dual mind-sets
Maintaining common standards is critical
Students
Tutors/
Assessors
Decision
Makers
Quality
Assurance

11. What’s in it for me? Depends on who you are Student Relevant, expected
Tutor
Assessor QA
Moderators, Verifiers
Awarding Body
Relevant, expected
Control, efficiency
Recording decisions
Access, audit, process
What I want when I want it
Appropriate assessment, standards

12. So what next? Enriches assessment Qualification design
Focused strategy
Led by customer needs
‘e’ only qualifications
Diverse, relevant student work
Reduce burden on customers
No paper constraints
Our strategy is committed to e-work

13. Patrick Grant grant.p@ocr.org.uk
Thank you