Assessment and Feedback

1. To lobby for Faster, better and more regular feedback; The key challenge for York at the moment is consistency; feedback is not uniformly bad, but some tutors do give substandard feedback. To change this I ve lobbied for the University to create an online submission system which will allow us to monitor who gives feedback, how long it takes and how detailed it is and highlight the gaps. It should also allow markers to annotate scripts to return; students have told us over the year that this is the most useful way to get feedback on work. I ve also held departments to account in the first year of the implementation of a 6 week feedback rule, supporting formal complaints when departments overrun their target. Finally we ve started moving towards a 4 week turnaround, with key University staff supporting the move and a University committee now directly responsible for reporting on it. Next year the focus has to be on getting that 4 week turnaround; the rest of the sector and over half of York s departments manage it, there s no reason why York shouldn t. 2. To lobby for more varied assessment methods; I ve directly lobbied for greater variety in assessment methods through a paper submitted to University teaching committee arguing for undergraduate research to play a stronger role in learning and teaching and for it to be assessed in a way that allows students to demonstrate their skills, not only through bog standard exams and essays. As a result University staff will next year be able to use training to widen the variety of assessments on offer. Next year this is one for your course reps; if you feel that your department needs to use different forms of assessment to let you demonstrate your skills then get in touch with your course reps, they ll be able to argue for it to be taken on in your department. 3. Clarity in degree classifications, resit procedures and assessment before and after modularisation; This year I ve successfully argued for every combined course to produce a clear template of what their procedures mean for students in awarding degree classifications; for students already enrolled we can t change them but we can at least make them clear and now all bar 6 have been completed. I ve also fed into the creation of the assessment and feedback guide which you can access here http://www.york.ac.uk/staff/teaching/key-areas/assessment/ We ve also taken on an audit of the information that departments have given students following wide feedback that various policies in this area haven t been Next year we need to take another look at student handbooks; they aren t working as a

way of communicating key information, this needs to change. 4. Higher response rates to The National Student Survey This year we achieved a 74% response rate the the NSS, up from 60% last year and York s highest on record as well as winning an NUS student engagement award for the campaign. The survey is the most powerful tool to lobby for change that we have and a high response rate will strengthen our ability to use it for change next year. I also created 22 departmental level analyses of the NSS data for course reps to use in feeding in independent submissions to their annual departmental reviews and focus on the right areas to change at a local level. Next year we need to keep this high response rate up, and continue to use the data well for lobbying at both an institutional and departmental level. 5. A New York wide Annual student survey This summer we held the student experience survey which was completed by over 2000 students. The results will be used to inform work we do next year and add breadth and depth to the final year NSS results. Next year we need to really demonstrate the value of these surveys to students, not only winning changes form them but communicating those effectively. 6. Stronger and better publicised academic appeals procedures We are (fairly) certain that YUSU has supported a greater proportion of academic appeals this year than we have ever managed before, with more publicity for the advice and support centre, new leaflets and specific areas on the website to tell students about academic appeals: http://www.yusu.org/kb/article/academicrepresentation Last summer I successfully knocked back a proposal to change the University regulations which would automatically suspend students off sick for more than four weeks. Next year we need to continue this trend; we re improving but there is a very, very long way still to go.