Dr. Jen Harvey:

Assessment and feedback is core and it should be done strategically across a programme. There is horrendous clumping and over-assessment in programmes which encourages things such as plagiarism and surface approaches to learning. That is why we are harping on about the importance of providing academic staff with strategies - so that they can review and reflect and make a choice about the best way to assess something. One size does not fit all. DIT certainly has a diversity of learners, and to assess them only in one or two methods - I am not saying that happens at DIT - does not capture the strength of the different kinds of learning and the different academic qualities that students are bringing. There is such a diversity of programmes within the institute. We need to be reflecting and doing something different. It is fundamental within the first year. Students need to know very early on how they are doing relative to others, whether they are progressing, whether they have the right skills and so on. That needs to be a conversation that happens with the academic member of staff within the first five or six weeks. There is something to discuss about assessment. It is hardly any surprise that students withdraw when one leaves any discussion on assessment until the final exams at the end of the year.