What happened in 1969?
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     The Open University
    •   Founded in 1969
    •   Supported distance learning
    •   ~169,000 students, mostly studying part-time
    •   Undergraduate modules are completely open entry, so students have 
        a wide range of previous qualifications
    •   Normal age range from 18 to ??
    •   ~30,000 of our students have declared a disability of some sort
    •   ~8,000 of our students live outside the UK
    2018/19 figures
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     Open University assessment – classic model 
     (to 1990s and beyond)
     
    •  Tutor-marked assignments (TMAs) and possibly computer-marked 
       assignments (CMAs), done at home, contributing to Overall 
       Continuous Assessment Score (OCAS)
    •  Much importance was placed on tutor feedback on TMAs. Marking and 
       commenting on TMAs was known as “correspondence tuition”
    •  Unseen examination, done at Examination Centre leading to Overall 
       Examination Score (OES)
    •  Typically 50:50 weighting between OCAS and OES, but grade 
       boundaries informed by both OCAS and OES
    •  Importance has always been placed on accessibility (e.g. for disabled 
       students, students in secure environments)
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     Questions
    •   What does “formative” mean?
    •   What is the purpose of your assessment?
    •   Is your assessment accessible to all, and fair?
    “By now it should be clear that there is no such thing as a fair test, nor could there 
    be: the situation is too complex and the notion simplistic. However ... we can begin 
    to work towards tests that are more fair to all groups likely to be taking them...”  
    (Gipps and Murphy, 1994, p. 273)
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     From 2002
     Interactive computer-marked assessment 
     •  We prefer constructed-response to selected-response questions, but a 
        lot can be achieved with simple selected response questions, provided 
        they are carefully written
     •  In my work, the focus has always been on ‘assessment for learning’, 
        so feedback and giving students a second and third attempt is 
        important.
     •  We aim to ‘provide a tutor at the student’s elbow’ (Ross et al., 2006)
     •  However, a summative interactive computer-marked assignment that 
        ran for the first time in 2002 was in use until 2018 and used by around 
        18,000 students.
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