Assessment Guidelines
This page provides guidelines on writing assessment statements for subject descriptions. For a discussion about the purpose of assessment, the range of modes of assessment available, best practice in assessment and other matters relating to curriculum design, see the Centre for Higher Education's Guide for Reviewing Assessment. Assessment is governed by the Assessment Policy and the Coursework Assessment Design & Methods Procedure.
Requirements of Assessment Statements
Subject descriptions, including the assessment statements contained within them, provide students with information they may use to make subject choices, or, in the case of compulsory subjects, information that explains what they will be required to study. They also establish a contract between the University and the student that what is set out in the subject description will be provided. Information contained in subject descriptions must therefore be accurate and detailed enough for students to be able to make informed choices, and the terms of the subject "contract" must be clearly stated in case disputes arise. This is particularly important in assessment, which is overwhelmingly the area in which there is the largest number of disputes and appeals.
All subject descriptions must provide the following information for each item of assessment:
- Kind of assessment instrument (essay, project, examination, oral presentation, etc.);
- Length of the item (in terms of words, pages, time, etc);
- Timing of the assessment in relation to the teaching period (e.g. Week 7, midsemester, during the examination period, between the two intensive delivery periods, three weeks after the intensive delivery period); and
- Percentage weighting of the item.
Assessment Standards – Amount
As a guide, the standard amount of assessment is:
- undergraduate 12.5 point subjects have a total assessment of 4000 words or equivalent;
- postgraduate 12.5 point subjects have a total assessment of 5000 words or equivalent.
Subjects of other points values are expected to have a commensurate amount of assessment (so an undergraduate subject worth 6.25 points would have 2000 words of assessment, while a 25-point postgraduate subject would have assessment totalling 10,000 words).
Generally accepted equivalences are:
- an hour of examination = 1000 words;
- 10 minutes of individual oral presentation = 1000 words;
- a 20-minute presentation by a 3-person group = 1000 words.*
*Group presentations and assignments are more difficult to quantify and the size of the group should be taken into account. It is generally expected that an individual would be required to produce more work in a group than they would if completing the task alone.
Typical Undergraduate Assessment Statement
A typical undergraduate assessment statement might read:
One-hour mid-semester test (25%); 10-minute oral presentation towards the end of semester (25%); 2000 word assignment, due in the assessment period (50%).
This level of assessment assumes that the assessed work is the result of a substantial amount of independent research and learning, and (apart from examinations) has been thoughtfully shaped, carefully revised and is well-presented.
Variations to Standard Amount of Assessment
Variations of plus or minus 500 words (for a 12.5-point subject, to be commensurate for subjects of other points values) are acceptable. Where other variations are required, a case must be made and the Academic Board must approve the variation.
There are many factors that might produce variations from the general standard of assessment, including that:
- an item of assessed work is intended to be produced more rapidly and without the kind of polish generally required, and so a greater word count might be justified (e.g. journals and weekly contributions to a discussion forum);
- a strict limit is put on the length to develop habits of conciseness and direct expression;
- the contact time is much smaller or greater than in a standard subject, with correspondingly more or less work expected out-of-class, and so the amount of work produced for assessment varies accordingly (graduate subjects tend to have fewer contact hours which balances the greater assessment demand);
- a substantial part of the assessment task is done in class (i.e. the learning is in completing in class under supervision a task that is the assessment), and so the assessment requirements might be greater (e.g. studio or laboratory work).
When considering a request for a variation to the standard amount of assessment, the Academic Board will consider the relationship of the total time commitment for the subject to its contact hours. The standard total time commitment for a 12.5-point subject is 120 hours. If the subject has 36 contact hours, this effectively leaves 84 hours in which to produce assessment items. Obviously, it would not be reasonable to expect a student to produce 10,000 words of assessment during this timeframe.
Hurdle Requirements
Hurdle requirements must be specified in assessment statements.
Assessment Standards – Timing
First-year undergraduate subjects must schedule at least one assessment component within the first six weeks of the teaching period, so that the component has been submitted, marked and returned to the student with those first six weeks. The intention is to provide students with early feedback in preparation for their final piece of assessment.
No assessment may be scheculed during the ‘swot-vac’ period at the end of the standard teaching semester and before the assessment period.
Assessment Standards – Weighting
The percentage weighting given to items of assessment reflects three things:
- its length;
- the amount of work expected to complete it satisfactorily; and
- its importance in assessing mastery of the material in the subject.
The weighting of the assessment items within subjects generally reflects the length of the assessment (e.g. in an undergraduate subject with 4000 words of assessment, a 2000-word assignment will normally be weighted at 50%). The weighting of items signals to students the proportional amount of work required for each item.
In some instances,the weighting of assessment items may not be proprotional to their length (e.g. a journal, which can be produced more quickly than a crafted essay, may have a lighter weighting than an essay of similar length). Where weighting of assessment items is not proportional to their length, a justification for the weighting must be made.
Quantifying Assessment Items
Many kinds of assessment items are difficult to quantify, but it is important that some attempt be made to quantify the assessment item, both to provide students with guidelines as to what is expected of them, and to make assessment equitable (if assessment items of widely variable scope are submitted, it is very difficult to divorce the quantity from the quality in the assessment and judge the students’ achievement fairly).
There is no general solution. Sometimes, if the assessment is nonverbal but numerical or visual (graphs, designs, images) the quantity can be given in terms of number of pages, or the number of items required. Sometimes it might be possible to quantify in terms of the hours of input: "students are expected to commit approximately twenty hours to completing this task." In attempting to quantify an assessment item, the academic staff member might consider how they would explain the scope of the task to students in the detailed statement of the task requirements, or how they would respond to students when they ask about the scope of the task. The kinds of question students ask might be an indication of how the task might be quantified (e.g. "How long…", "How many…", "How much…").