No more exams - the future of higher education assessment?

There are currently empty exam halls all over the world with universities having to rapidly find new ways of assessing students. The move to online assessments will change the role of faculty and may even pave the way to get rid of exams altogether or certainly do them differently. The future of assessment will be a reflection of the future of the way education is provided to our students. Assessment lies at the very centre of our education system. The timing is now for entrepreneurs to help us imagine a new future. 

1. In brief

Right now, universities are open to exploring new products and technologies from startups that can deliver robust, future-proofed digital assessments at scale. This post looks at what’s currently happening and the challenges and opportunities for startups, recognising that universities will soon have to decide what they commit to for the medium or long term.

2. In this blog post you will learn...

• How universities tackled the 2020 crisis in student assessment, with case studies
• The challenges and tradeoffs in moving assessment online at speed and at scale
• Longer-term goals and visions for digital assessment that need to be factored in now
• The opportunities for startups and their founders who seize the day (see section 8 and 9!)
• The current supplier market for digital assessment - market map

3. Change at breakneck speed

In March 2020, as the impact of covid-19 and lockdown crystallised, universities confronted a stark challenge. Within weeks, hundreds of thousands of UK university students were due in exam halls to complete the pen-and-paper exams that would decide their final grades after three or more years of study. But the exam halls were closing and in-person attendance ruled out, leaving the students facing an uncertain future. And the universities had just a few weeks to work out how to bring their assessments online, at speed and at scale, in a way that would be rigorous, fair to students and create parity for the results compared to previous years.

Digital assessment was not new but widespread sector adoption was limited. Tech startups and some established brands were innovating in the space and universities were sampling and trialling their work, with pockets of enthusiasm and digital best practice, but the pace was leisurely and adoption at scale some years off.

Now, suddenly, it had to be made to work, first time, across large cohorts of students. Universities started racing to see what was possible, what was desirable and what was fair, opening the door wide to tech companies with ready-to-roll, scalable solutions. What they did, and the challenges they faced, offers valuable insights for founders now developing in the assessment space.

Here we look at some of the key players, in the form of a market map, a range of solutions adopted by universities and the trade-offs they faced as they sought to balance assessment rigour and security against what was possible and fair. We then offer insights and a vision.

This article reflects the thinking in the joint Emerge Education – Jisc paper Assessment rebooted: From 2020’s quick fixes to future transformation

4. Gearing up for a new world

On the university front, first responses varied greatly. Many had some kind of long-term strategy and some managed to accelerate or even turbocharge their strategies while others put them on hold. In a moment we’ll look at three snapshots to illustrate this.

On the provider front, tech platforms with an existing base scaled up massively and others were introduced for the first time, with a few startups rapidly taking large market shares. Here are the leading startups that offer standalone assessments tools (as opposed to the larger platform providers that include assessment modules in a wider ecosystem). They work across four dimensions of assessment that have been identified as the key areas where external providers can add the greatest value for universities:

• online assessments
• proctoring
• credentialing
• marking and feedback

5. Three snapshots of university responses

Here we consider three brief case studies – snapshots of university responses to the challenges.

We focus on the two dimensions of assessment that were available to them in such a short space of time – online assessments and proctoring – and their stories range from digital trailblazing to a radical re-thinking of assessment.

Trailblazing – University of London

At one extreme, the University of London (UoL) took 40,000 students sitting around 500 exams in 160 countries from face-to-face, pen-and-paper assessment to digital testing in one move, which included digitally proctored exams. 

Craig O’Callaghan, UoL worldwide director of operations and deputy chief executive, said at the time:

“What we were expecting to do maybe two or three years down the road we’re going to try and do this summer. We’re making an enormous step-change in our assessment piece at this moment. In the UK, I don’t think anyone else is trying to do this.” 

UoL rapidly produced three assessment routes using the platforms Moodle and Turnitin for most exams, and Janison and CoSector to cover digitally proctored exams for about 10,000 students. It also extended the timetable to enable large-scale testing and practice for students.

Fast progress – Brunel University

Brunel University started in a stronger position than many: about 20% of students were already experiencing bring-your-own-device exams and it was in its third year of rolling out the platform WISEflow for digital exams and all course work assignments. It moved to open-book, take-home exams, without locked-down devices or remote proctoring, mostly sat in a strictly exam-length timeframe (ie a two-hour exam or three-hour exam), with some questions revised for suitability and some types of assessment changed to include longer pieces of work.

“I would be surprised if we don’t find that we’ve got to a place where we wanted to get to much quicker as a result,” says Mariann Rand-Weaver, vice-provost (education).

Radical thinking - the Open University

The Open University (OU) took a different, light-touch route. Of more than 300,000 assignments scheduled between April and June, it went ahead only with those that were essential, due to regulatory reasons or the weighting of the course towards a final assessment. The rest would be cancelled and grades assigned based on continuous TMA results, though students could request a postponement. The switch was made easier because the OU had generally moved away from final exams in recent years, with fewer than a third of modules requiring them.

A key premise of the approach was to reduce student stress at a time of already heightened anxiety. In addition, the OU is thinking radically about assessment more generally. As Klaus-Dieter Rossade, director of assessment programme, says,

“The question might be, do we still need an exam going forward? Some may be required by regulators but the argument to really question whether you need one will be ever greater.”

6. Challenges and trade-offs

Scaling up rapidly is incredibly complex. Universities’ quick fixes not only put theory very rapidly into practice, sometimes for the first time, but exposed a number of challenges and trade-offs, particularly in the dimensions of proctoring and credentialing.

Perhaps the most common, and most pressing, is balancing the security of locked-down and digitally proctored exams against the ability of students at home to access the necessary technology and connectivity, not least in home circumstances where access to adequate devices, broadband and quiet spaces may be difficult. This balance is a conundrum that lies at the heart of current digital assessment and solving it presents a major opportunity to founders and innovators. How can you make assessment secure, trustworthy and fair, but also adaptable to circumstances?

Universities also see a need for balance between mitigating student stress, which they identify as a major consideration, and meeting the demands for rigour, both from students themselves and to achieve the recognition of professional, statutory and regulatory bodies that is critical to the career paths of many students. Again, this is an area of opportunity for founders and innovators.

7. A path to the future: the opportunity

“I’m hoping that the current situation will have opened the Pandora’s box in that more academics will see the advantages of using digital technology for assessment and use this as a stepping stone or as a building block for exploring what the possibilities are going forward.”

Mariann Rand-Weaver, vice-provost (education), Brunel

The 2020 experience has been one of quick fixes and rapid judgements, using off-the-shelf solutions. But now is the time for finding longer-term and more robust answers. Covid has not gone away and there is enough likelihood of further flare-ups, and even further wholesale lockdowns, that no university can contemplate returning to ‘business as usual’. Assessment has changed irrevocably.

At the same time, universities have had a first taste of digital assessment at scale. Importantly, they will all have forged new relationships, for good or ill, with suppliers of platforms and other tech. They are now looking to how they will manage 2020-21, and with whom, and they recognise that, in doing so, they are embarking on the permanent digitalisation of assessment and therefore need to make some long-term strategic decisions, having learned lessons that they may not have contemplated just a few months ago.

The opportunities presented in the sector cannot be overestimated. Nor can the need for founders to offer solutions at scale in the very near future that point to (and are sustainable for) the long term.

Our belief is that the key to the future is that assessment has to be relevant for the context of that future, not of the past. It would be a backwards step to think of technology helping to assess an individual’s ability to retain knowledge without also recognising a need for it to assess how the individual applies that knowledge practically and how they can demonstrate the ability to acquire, weigh and use evolving knowledge and skills. Employers will also want to know how well that individual works in a team, solves complex problems, critiques, innovates, challenges assertions and collaborates at distance. Assessment that answers these complex and varied needs of employers can also provide more rounded and transferable qualifications for the students themselves.

Assessment rebooted offers an insightful vision of assessment for the year 2030, together with the message that such a vision is now quickly being brought forward.

 “As a sector we need institutions to work together to innovate, to collaborate with both technology and software providers, and employers. Making sure that we are able to share good practice and have enough training opportunities and support for staff, so that we take them with us on this journey.” - Mariann Rand-Weaver, vice-provost (education), Brunel

8. Implications for founders and startups

The first implication is a need to move quickly but with solutions that look to the long term and embrace a path towards it. Quick fixes that may have worked in an emergency are not appropriate for 2020-21, let alone beyond. Such solutions also need to be devised from the ground up to work at scale and must be flexible: demonstrably sustainable in an evolving and unpredictable world.

And founders need to recognise that this isn’t just universities implementing new technologies for students. Much of what those institutions do is being shaken up. Students feel insecure but so do universities. It’s also a significant shift for many other stakeholders including policymakers and regulators, employers and parents, well as the wider public. Solutions need to be: 

Relevant: To emerging needs, such as measuring soft and creative skills as well as memory and deductive skills, and by remaining appropriate as universities reimagine how and why students are assessed. VR, AR, AI and collaborative tools are all useful technologies here.

Adaptable: To assess a growing range of courses and modes of delivery, including lifelong learning, and to be student-centred, personalised, available anytime, anywhere, efficient and manageable at scale.

Trustworthy: Addressing academic integrity issues of plagiarism and identity verification and data integrity and ownership issues.

9. What do founders and startups need to know now?

“Covid has raised the stakes considerably and it is going to challenge the tech companies to improve. Universities are going to really push them very hard to improve their product sets. Once we've seen this major scale test this summer, we'll learn a lot.” – Craig O’Callaghan, UoL worldwide director of operations and deputy chief executive

Here we offer a series of observations and their implications about the shift happening now, in 2020.

 10. In conclusion

This time in 2020 is unprecedented. It is a time of huge opportunity for founders and startups in the assessment space but it will not last in such an open way. Universities, and other stakeholders, including the professional, statutory and regulatory bodies that recognise courses and credentials, will begin to make commitments to particular approaches, technologies, platforms and providers (not necessarily the best but those that are able to satisfy requirements at the time). This space will become more crowded as both founders and investors seize the opportunities. 

But right now, the opportunity is there. It is a founder's responsibility to take this opportunity and ensure you are a central part of this positive change by helping others see new possibilities. The future of assessment will be a reflection of the future of the way education is provided to our students. As entrepreneurs, you can help make this better future happen. 

Contributors to thank

• Marcelo Adler, CFO, Grupo Tiradentes 
• Sue Attewell, head of edtech, Jisc 
• Samuel Bj?rklund, business development manager, Sana Labs 
• Douglas Blackstock, chief executive QAA 
• Paul Cashian, institutional lead for assessment, Coventry University 
• Chris Cobb, pro-vice-chancellor and deputy chief executive, University of London 
• Mary Curnock Cook, network chair, Emerge Education 
• Maren Deepwell, chief executive, Association for Learning Technology 
• Allison Doorbar, managing partner, Eduworld 
• Paul Feldman, CEO, Jisc 
• Rebecca Galley, director of learning experience and technology, OU 
• Paul Gough, principal and vice-chancellor, Arts University Bournemouth 
• Daniel Haven, founder, ProctorExam 
• Wayne Houlden, founder, Janison 
• Simon Howells, business analyst, Manchester Metropolitan University 
• Emma Hunt, deputy vice-chancellor, Arts University Bournemouth 
• Alexander Iosad, head of engagement, Emerge Education 
• Ian Kimber, director, strategic projects, QAA 
• David Kofoed Wind, CEO, Eduflow 
• Jan Lynn-Matern, CEO and founder partner at Emerge Education 
• Lucy Lynn-Matern, principal, Emerge Education 
• Andy McGregor, director of edtech, Jisc 
• Shinaz Navas, associate at Emerge Education, author 
• Nic Newman, partner, Emerge Education 
• Craig O’Callaghan, University of London worldwide director of operations and deputy chief executive 
• Mariann Rand-Weaver, vice-provost (education), Brunel University London 
• Graeme Redshaw-Boxwell, learning enhancement and technology team manager, Newcastle University 
• Klaus-Dieter Rossade, director of assessment programme, OU 
• Helen Smallbone, academic registrar, Edge Hill University; chair, Academic Registrars Council Assessment Practitioners Group 
• Natalie Smolenski, co-founder, Learning Machine 
• Andrew Turner, associate pro-vice-chancellor, teaching and learning, Coventry University 
• Alex Young, CEO, Virti