As part of its Education 4.0 vision JISC convened in 2019 an expert meeting to explore the future of assessment in universities and colleges and how technology could be used to support and improve assessment. The report “The future of assessment: five principles, five targets for 2025” is the result of this expert meeting and follow-up interviews. In the report experts share their vision about the role video (and media) can play in assessment. Especially in times of quarantine where all teaching and learning has moved to online this report can inspire those that are now also looking for remote or online assessment.
The report sees five principles to affect assessment in the future: authenticity, accessibility, appropriate automatization, continuity and security. For example, by asking students to develop websites, shoot and edit videos, use social media they will be assessed in authentic tasks that are much closer related to the tasks they will meet in their profession then when they would be writing another essay. The report refers to experiences with tools like Pitch2Peer in which students can reflect on their own as well on their peers’ pitches, or i-Spot: a webcam instrument for video-based feedback on communication skills developed by Open University of the Netherlands. Also, Microsoft’s Flipgrid, a tool that enables learners and teachers to record and share short videos fits in this short list of examples on use of video for authentic assessment. Some subjects like theater or dance lend themselves more than others to video based assessment, the report describes how Preston’s College in Lancashire (UK) has been using a 360° camera in dance class as a good example of immersive technologies applied in assessment. Immersive technologies being used increasingly for teaching and learning, will inevitably have to make their way into assessment as well.
