ERGA CONFERENCE 2007

Building Assessment that Works

The ERGA Conference 2007 was a great success. Educators around Australia discussed best practice and new techniques in assessment. The day of plenary and concurrent sessions plus two prior workshop sessions provided attendees with a plethora of ideas on assessment to take back to their institutions. 

The keynote speaker for the 2007 conference was Professor Royce Sadler from the Griffith Institute for Higher Education, Griffith University. He has been teaching and researching in higher education for over 35 years in four different institutions, and his research has focused on the assessment of academic achievement, both formative and summative. He has published extensively and been widely cited. He has offered workshops, keynote addresses and consultancies for many universities in Australia and overseas on assessment and other issues. He is a Member of the Editorial Advisory Board of two international assessment journals and a regular manuscript reviewer for four others.

Full Program

    Download 2007's Program here  

    Download 2007's Proceedings here 

Keynote Address

• Prof Royce Sadler - Assessment Lacunae: Things you would not read about.

Conference Topics

• The teaching/research nexus
  • Annotated bibliographies can help maximise benefit of literature research skkills exercises: Coulson & McEntee
  • An assessment rubric that SHOULD help to minimise inadvertent plaigiarism: McGowan
  • Incorporating research skills development in higher education: a case study in Electronic Engineering Coursework Master: Al-Sarawi, Ng, Willison & O'Regan
  • Strengthening the teaching and research nexus through formative assessment involving collaborative peer review: Wood
  • The best of both worlds: Combining oral and written assessment tasks in a Commerce course: Langton & Yahanpath
  • To ‘cheat’ or not to ‘cheat’-use of student-prepared notes (cheat sheets) in exams: Jerram
• e-learning, assessment and feedback
  • e-Assessment tasks that inform staff teaching: Crisp
  • Doing it the WIMBA way - an initial evaluation of a voice tool for learning: Coleman-George & Warner
  • Developing a Script Concordance Test for assessment in a medical course: Duggan
  • The digital thesis: Assessment challenges and opportunities: Green, Donaldson & Mills
  • Integrating online assessment into offshore dental teaching resources: Steele, Baron, Kardachi
  • Building formative assessment into a dental online teaching resource: Murdoch, Steele, Lawson & Richards
• Student diversity: the current generation
  • Understanding student attrition in contemporary Australian universities: Evidence from an empirical case study: Deng, Lu & Cao
  • When ‘the other’ becomes the mainstream: Assessment implications: Picard & Myers
• Student diversity: implications for assessment design
  • Assessing the Personal: Direct cultural experience and academic writing: Westphalen
  • Assessing ‘international perspectives’ as a graduate quality: Scarino & Crichton
• Student diversity: implications for feedback
  • Assessment and feedback in higher education: Key links in the learning chain: Cameron
  • Little by little: Making incremental assessment and feedback efficient in language rich subjects: McEntee & Potter

• Managing and assesing group work
  • Group-based assessment as a motivator for Developing individual skill: Alexander & Faulkner
  • Modes of group-work assessment which avoid students’ complaints: Shannon & Missingham
  • Assessment of peer assessment in student presentations: Enhancing student engagement and understanding: Brinkworth, Posterino & Saint

• Quality assurance
  • One School’s response to the First Year Expectations survey: Shannon
  • Analysis of level 3 undergraduate practicals: Do our students really know what we think they know?: Botten
  • A multi-disciplinary program of peer observation partnerships: O’Keefe, LeCouteur, Miller, McGowan & Anderssont

• Assessment methods that build students autonomous problem-solving abilities
  • A survey of student attitudes to a sequential assessment method in Engineering: Walker
  • 3,2,1.... Action: A pilot study investigating the use of Action Planning Statements in tutoring Clinical Skills to second year medical students
    Selby

Workshops

• Applying for a Carrick Grant
  
• Designing Multiple Choice Questions

The ERGA Conference 2007 was generously supported by all faculties at the University of Adelaide, CLPD and the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic, University of Adelaide.

ERGA 2007 Collaboration Networking Event

In response to interest in networking expressed on the conference feedback survey, ERGA hosted a breakfast for people who wanted to get together to discuss potential educational research collaborations.

The event was fully sponsored by ERGA  Delegates outlined one or two issues / themes / areas they wished to discuss or research in the future and were seated with other people who expressed similar interests.