In this Point of Departure, the idea of authentic assessment is examined and troubled by drawing on Derrida's hauntology. The spectres of higher education invite us to reconsider what is 'real' about past, present, and future assessment practices. Such spectres do not lecture or produce a single, definitive interpretation. Rather, these spectres…

It is well known that research quality notions vary across research fields. Despite this, humanities quality notions are often portrayed as deviant or particularly hard to grasp. To some extent, this has a historical explanation, as notions from within the humanities have not been the standards used in the development of research evaluation tools.…

Anonymous assessment, introduced to higher education over the last twenty-five years to reduce attainment gaps, is a now common place. This paper suggests some ways in which anonymous assessment could be reconceptualised. We argue that there is scant empirical evidence of anonymity having worked in reducing attainment gaps in higher education. It…

Current methods for evaluating faculty teaching fall short, and one way to address this is through campus-wide initiatives that focus on change at the level of academic units. The complex context of higher education makes meaningful teaching evaluation difficult; in particular, four sobering realities of this context must be taken into account in…

The rapid development of higher education in China has significantly advanced physical education within universities, contributing to students' comprehensive development and national health improvement. However, the expansion of university enrollment has introduced challenges such as a decrease in per capita sports resources and declines in…

National Assessment Week (NAW) is a series of virtual events dedicated to advancing assessment practices in higher education. This annual event occurs during the first full week of April and represents a concentrated effort to foster assessment dialogue across the nation's colleges and universities. With a mission to enhance assessment practices…

Computational Thinking (CT) is considered a core 21st century digital skill. The aspect of assessment is crucial and knowing what, who, when, how, and where to assess is important for assessment design. In this study, we conducted an umbrella review to gain insights regarding CT assessment in higher education. In total, we analyzed 11 reviews,…

This article engages posthuman theory to propose a rethinking of the theory and practice of relational pedagogies within higher education (HE). There has been renewed emphasis within HE discourses on the significance of relationships within learning and teaching as a means to offer a counter-view to an uncaring marketised HE system. This article…

A source of contestation in higher education curricula is the multiplicity of demands they serve and purposes they seek to fulfil. In this paper, we see this contestation as actively shaping assessment theory and practice, resulting in paradoxes of valorisation and vilification of everyday assessment practices. We address the plethora of…

Generative artificial intelligence (generative AI) applications such as ChatGPT and its brethren erupted onto the scene last year and have been quite a disruptor throughout higher education. Like much new technology, generative AI brings with it benefits and challenges. This note focuses on early experiences with ChatGPT, attempts to learn how to…

As colleges and universities seek to invigorate ethics education, they need methods to identify where and describe how ethics is already present across their curricula. Meeting this need is complicated by the fact that much ethics education occurs in courses not explicitly focused on ethics or morality. In this paper, we review recent…

Through a lens for engaged scholarship (Boyer in "Journal of Public Service and Outreach," 1(1), 11-20, 1996) this multiple case study (Merriam, 1996) explores the potential of scholarly podcasts for public knowledge dissemination, highlighting the misalignment of university impact metrics with this medium. Our team collected qualitative…

Adaptive Comparative Judgment (ACJ), an approach to the assessment of open-ended problems which utilizes a series of comparisons to produce a standardized score, rank order, and a variety of other statistical measures, has demonstrated high levels of reliability and validity and the potential for application in a wide variety of areas. Further,…

With increasing canonicity, particularly within higher education assessment, the demonstrable achievement of goals, or the delivery of a program, or as one scholar wryly deemed it, the "manipulation of the independent variable" (Moncher and Prinz 1991, p. 247), are commonly referred to as implementation fidelity or fidelity of…

The post-pandemic expectations of today's students require greater innovation in teaching and learning. Rapidly changing technologies and software applications will drastically change how higher education is structured and disseminated. In this article, the authors examine the use of micro-credentialing, the potential and challenges of Artificial…