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2020: ASCILITE 2020 Conference Proceedings: ASCILITE's First Virtual Conference

The 2020 ASCILITE annual conference was hosted by the University of New England, 30th November to 1st December.

Editors: S. Gregory, S. Warburton, and M. Parkes

Published: 30 November 2020

ASCILITE Conference - Concise Papers

  • The benefits of creating open educational resources as assessment in an online education course

    Eseta Tualaulelei

    This paper reports preliminary findings of a pilot project at an Australian regional university where students in an online multicultural education course created open educational resources as an assessment task. Designed as action research, the project transposed early years educators’ concerns about professional learning and resources into an assessment task. Students created resources in response to the task, and these resources were collated into an open educational resource. Based on a range of project data, the paper presents preliminary findings that show the assessment task had many benefits for students including increased engagement, practical learnings and pride in sharing their work. The paper concludes with implications for practice and suggestions for related research.

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  • (e)Portfolio: A history

    Orna Farrell

    This paper traces the evolution of the concept of portfolio from the Renaissance to the present day. Over time the meaning of portfolio evolved from its origins as a case for holding loose papers to other contexts such as finance, government and education. Portfolios evolved from paper to electronic, from local network to the world wide web. The decade from 2000-2010 was a period when technology became part of mainstream society and educational technology become part of mainstream higher education, and portfolios became a ubiquitous assessment. From 2010-2020, a shift towards an emphasis on pedagogy and the student learning experience occurred in eportfolio research and practice. The history of (e)portfolio in higher education shows that the higher education system will continue to gradually evolve, incorporating concepts, technology and approaches that are compatible rather than transformative.

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  • Assessing esport candidacy for critical thinking education

    Ger Post, James Birt

    Critical thinking in education is mainstream with ever increasing industry support for soft skills and capacity for graduates to solve problems, plan strategy, make decisions and communicate creatively. However, teaching and assessing critical thinking is resource intensive especially when scaling to large remote or online classes. Often, the solutions are bespoke, custom outcomes for a single classroom that are expensive to scale. Commercial computer games and esports may offer a solution. In this paper we aim to define critical thinking in education and how this relates to skills in esports, including decision making, problem solving, making a game plan, developing strategy and communication. To achieve this, we propose a conceptual framework to assess effectiveness of esports in teaching critical thinking using an adapted digital game-based learning framework and the learning goals of critical thinking. We support the framework with an esport case example of Rocket League with a lesson plan.

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  • Collaborative approach and lessons learnt from transitioning to remotely invigilated online examinations

    Vinh Tran, Justin Chu, Jasmine Cheng

    The global pandemic in 2020 has spurred the rapid transition to remote learning for higher education providers in terms of course delivery and assessments. Final examinations which play an important role in summarily assessing students’ attainments of course intended learning outcomes are traditionally conducted in a physical invigilated environment. This paper discussed the transition from paper-based physically invigilated final examinations into remotely invigilated online examinations. It highlights the collaborative approach across different parts of the organisation to bring together a smooth experience for students to undertake their final examinations while the academic integrity of the examinations is still maintained. It also sheds lights on some measures of the success of the transition including feedback from teaching staff and students who participated in the process from which lessons are learnt as feedforward for future undertakings.

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  • Development of a rubric to assess student participation in an online discussion board

    Elizabeth Ware

    Online discussion boards provide opportunities for students to share experiences, consolidate knowledge, explore new ideas, and feel connected to other students and faculty. Despite the benefits, many students do not voluntarily engage in discussion board activities. Mandating participation is a contentious issue, but after reviewing the literature, a summative assessment task and a rubric were developed and trialed in a fully online, Australian postgraduate course. An audit of the discussion board posts from two semesters without the assessment task, and two semesters using the assessment task, found the quality and quantity of posts increased. There were significant improvements in regularity, discussion of course concepts, translation to relevant experiences, and support and encouragement for other learners. The initiative successfully created a learning environment and is being implemented in other subjects.

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  • Online Supervised Exams: Entering the 4th Year at UNE

    Jennifer Lawrence, Kylie Day

    The University of New England initially embarked on a trial of online supervised exams in early 2017. In the several years since this pilot has expanded considerably, with over half of unit exams offered online by the end of 2019 and almost a quarter of students opting-in. As the global COVID19 crisis emerged the institution transitioned suddenly to a fully online exam period, with the first fully online exam period conducted in June 2020. Given COVID19 has caused many institutions to consider a similar shift the UNE exams team present an account of this project and advice for other institutions on this transition.

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  • Transforming assessment – Critical reflections around resolving tensions between assessment for learning and of learning

    Sabina Cerimagic, Priya Khanna

    Current assessment and progression policies and practices in higher education are largely dominated by dichotomy between formative and summative assessments. Given assessments are major drivers of learning, such as dichotomous assessment systems which promote the learning that can only be tested via summative assessments and falls short in fostering complex graduate attributes - such as interdisciplinary competencies. Medical programs, across the globe are now embracing emerging concepts such as programmatic assessment that allows the assessments to serve ‘for, of and as’ learning. Given the most challenging curricular reform in any field, including Business is reforming assessments, this paper critically reflects on how emerging concepts such as programmatic assessment are promising in resolving the tensions created by dichotomy of assessment for vs as learning. The reflections are based on rapid scoping review of programmatic assessment in Medical education, as well as authors’ familiarity with implementation of programmatic assessment in the Sydney Medical School renewed curriculum. There are many lessons that can be learned and carried over from the University of Sydney Medical curriculum to the Business education space. authentic assessment

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  • Enhancing feedback with FeedbackFruits: Scaling for transformative implementation

    Chris Campbell, Lenka Borer, Sheila McCarthy

    This study investigated one technology that would allow for self, peer and group feedback for students. In order to enhance feedback given, the tool FeedbackFruits, allowed staff to implement in their course in a consistent and easy way. This study was conducted over two trimesters on the effectiveness, ease-of-use and the ability to be able to scale up across the university. Staff report they would use FeedbackFruits in the future and that students were generally positive with regards to using it. Although the study is continuing, the design-based research methodology allows for improvements in study design to be modified according to university needs in order to best evaluate the technology.

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  • Learning from COVID-19 to futureproof assessment in Business Education

    Sandra Barker, Harsh Suri, Brent Gregory, Audrea Warner, Amanda White, Vivek Venkiteswaran, Una Lightfoot

    The prevalence of face to face invigilated exams in Business Schools across Australia and New Zealand (indeed around the world) needed to be reconsidered quickly during the recent COVID- 19 pandemic crisis. With teaching and learning activities moving to online mode due to social distancing requirements, the need to consider technology enabled assessments and how they could be efficiently and effectively implemented became a crucial focus of universities in early 2020, affecting staff and students alike. This paper looks at the experiences of a group of academics and academic developers from five ANZ Business Schools and the lessons that they learnt from these experiences.

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Showing 40–48 of 48 articles