A two day conference for practitioners and developers of e-Assessment

Past Events

Proceedings for 4th CAA Conference 2000

Foreword (2000)

We are pleased to welcome you to the Fourth CAA conference to be held at
Loughborough University. Over the four years the nature of the conference
has developed a strong international aspect, ensuring that worldwide
developments in CAA are represented within a context of practical application
in the higher educational environment. The conference is organised as part of
our commitment to the national TLTP3 project, The Evaluation and
Implementation of CAA. A panel of CAA experts from this project has
selected contributions to form a programme of events which reflects the wide
variety of issues now associated with CAA in Higher Education.

Context

The uptake of CAA is becoming increasingly prevalent in Higher Education.
The reasons for this are varied and include:

  • Managing increasing student numbers of wide diversity
  • Supporting the model of student-centred learning, and empowering
    student autonomy in learning
  • Facilitating the exploitation of the global education market
  • Enhancing the quality of learning and teaching
  • Exploiting the improved access to IT systems and networks
  • Increased availability of user friendly assessment software

As the use of CAA becomes more widespread and accepted, it is becoming
clear that those who remain cynical are losing this debate. We now see CAA
addressing quality issues, as well as empowering students to take
responsibility for their own learning. There are many reasons for the growth
of CAA and some may offer opportunities for the sceptics. What cannot be
ignored is the increasing evidence that students like CAA and often use it in
ways that were not available to them under traditional assessment. We now
see CAA underpinning the more usual methods in teaching, learning and
assessment. This, in turn, is impacting on the ability of students to reflect on
the teaching they are offered, and to make the move to the deeper
understanding that we aim to foster in the Higher Education sector.

Purpose of the conference

This year the conference has been proactive in seeking out the broader
national and international perspectives of CAA. The conference papers show
that CAA is moving to a greater degree of accountability and maturity in
service provision. Themes include integration and standards, test and
question design, reporting enhancements, and innovation in CAA. There is a
strong focus on meeting the needs of those with plans to develop CAA, those
already practising CAA, and those seeking to improve teaching and
assessment by developing institutional strategies to support CAA.
As ever, we aim to address a wide range of issues and to ensure the
dissemination of innovative and good practice.

Welcome to the conference. I hope you enjoy the event.