General discussion and feedback
Under the "Code of Conduct," we have the following: "Staff or contractors used to provide summative assessment services for OERu learners for transcript credit at the sending institution have appropriate qualifications or expertise in the subject matter in accordance with the institution's policies for local teaching staff." I am not sure why it's policies specifically for local teaching staff that would dictate the acceptability of qualifications for those performing summative assessment services. I suppose that if we're talking narrowly about subject-matter experts involved with providing summative assessment services, that might be OK, but in some cases assessors need to comply with additional requirements (for example, experience with assessment, or experience teaching the specific course within the past year) not required of local teaching staff, and in other cases assessors might not have to comply with policies for local teaching staff, for example working on-site at least 60% of the time. The intent of this piece of the code is good--we want to make sure that assessment people are qualified, and we want to allow institutions to set their own requirements. It's just that I don't think we should dictate that local teaching staff policies should provide the standard for those requirements. How about "in accordance with the institution's policies on assessment"??
Thanks Mika,
Thanks for the feedback. That is an important point.
The qualifications for teaching and assessment staff may be specified in different policies across the network (eg HR policy, Teaching and Learning Policy or Assessment Policy.)
I've revised and simplified the draft to read:
"Staff or contractors used to provide summative assessment services for OERu learners for transcript credit at the sending institution have appropriate qualifications or expertise in the subject matter and assessment in accordance with local institutional policy."
Very important observiations, Mika. The use of external assessors (even the acceptance of CLEP exams) has emerged recently as an issue in TRU's Faculty of Arts. In addition to the question of academic oversight, there may be union issues involved -- external assessors taking work away from faculty members.
