Leeds University puts Questionmark Perception to the test with assessment pilot - University staff acknowledges project benefits and gets involved

Questionmark Case Study

Piloting Perception

Leeds University aims to promote Teaching and Learning within its organisation. It is constantly looking for new ways to develop its resources in order to provide new and interesting ways for its students to learn and develop. The opportunity to bring automated assessments into the University came in January this year when Leeds' Coordinator for Flexible Learning, Lawrence Hamburg, requested funding from the University's CandIT HEFCE funded project to invest in an assessment system from Questionmark.  According to Lawrence Hamburg, "Questionmark is very well known in higher education and it is acknowledged as a standard for assessments. We knew that Perception was the system for us. The main hurdle was in finding the right pot of money to finance the project. It had to begin as a pilot so that we could see how well the staff and students would take to the system. So, we bought a site licence and we began to promote it throughout the University through seminars to staff."  The Perception server was set up and the FLDU ran a couple of seminars to demonstrate the new system to staff. Staff were asked to contact the FLDU to request user names and passwords should they wish to try out the systems for themselves. The response was quick and surprisingly broad.  Lawrence Hamburg remarked, "We have had around 100 staff requests for access to Perception in the space of just three months. They are interested enough to get access details and to take a look which is great for a pilot project and shows that there is sufficient interest to take this project further. We have a range of different users and they are at varying stages of Perception knowledge. In fact, some of those who have tried out Perception don't normally get involved in technology projects. We have already got around 70 assessments available on the system for people to try out and we can expect this number to multiply several fold en-route to mainstreaming the pilot. One of the most encouraging factors is that students are already using some of the assessments their tutors have created, and this is important considering that we only set-up the system in February this year and most staff are still experimenting with the software."

Moving into the mainstream

Leeds is now at the stage where it wants to mainstream the system which will mean providing much greater support for the Perception server to ensure that it is available at all times and in a stable way to everyone using it in their teaching - beyond the pilot stage.  Lawrence Hamburg commented, "We know it is going to grow and we want to support it more. The next step we need to take is to consider the issues and support requirements for moving beyond the pilot stage. After all, everyone who has used it so far has given great feedback and they can see the benefits it will bring to student learning. Staff are using Perception because they want to give more feedback to students which is particularly important in view of growing numbers and widening participation - student self-assessment is a key approach. Some staff would like to use it to partially replace exams, but there are many factors to consider before we move in this direction, for example, security issues." "The pilot has to develop to the next phase and we are confident that, with the help and support of Questionmark, we will be able to deliver a robust and effective system for student assessments on- and off-line. We have been extremely impressed with the functionality of Perception and with the level of support we have received from Questionmark. Perception has several core strengths. Its ease of use has to be one of the most compelling features of the system, yet it still provides some sophisticated and interesting question types. We believe that these factors will help enormously in encouraging more staff and students to get involved in this project," said Lawrence Hamburg.  The university is working the resource requirements for mainstreaming the systems. The key requirements here are to locate and support the server properly to ensure that the system is available at all times, with appropriate backup facilities etc. The administration of the server must be improved to allow for more wide-spread use of the system and security must enable web access to the server as well as summative testing to take place. All of this will require financial investment by Leeds as well as greater time input by support staff. As demand grows, this will help to argue a case for further funding to mainstream Perception beyond the pilot stage.

Helping to meet widening participation targets

Leeds University also believes that Perception could help to encourage new student recruits to the university. As the Government aims to have 50% of all 18 year old people studying in higher education, more facilities will be required to support the increased number of students with a range of learning needs. Lawrence Hamburg sees self-assessment and similar learning tools playing a key role in this. The Perception system will be able to provide an alternative learning method to staff and students that will help to support the learning process.  Another area where Lawrence Hamburg sees the benefits of Perception is in meeting new legislation for accessibility. This is to ensure that disabled students are not disadvantaged by any systems in use at the university. Lawrence Hamburg comments, "It is very clear that Questionmark is addressing the needs of higher education. Although it takes time to develop software that meets new legislation, Questionmark is already tweaking its existing version of Perception to make it more accessible today. As far as I can see, Questionmark is once again demonstrating its understanding of the needs of higher education and it is staying at the forefront of assessment systems."

What the future holds

Lawrence Hamburg concludes, "We have a site licence for Perception and we will be encouraging a whole range of staff and students to take full advantage of the Perception system. We will be developing our relationship with Questionmark to ensure that we remain up to date with the software and that we gain the technical support we need to further develop the systems. Our priority now is to mainstream the Perception system and provide truly robust assessments to help our students learn."

Questionmark was founded in the UK in 1988 and was one of the first software companies to provide an authoring framework to create tests and assessments to run on PCs. Today the company offers a full range of software for the testing and assessment marketplace spanning Windows 3.X and 95, DOS, Macintosh and web environments. Businesses, governments, and universities in over 40 countries now use Questionmark software.

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