Category: Assessment
Wires within wires – the hidden complexity of managing higher education assessment
Back in the day, assessment was a relatively self-contained process: students produce a thing, academics mark the thing, results get […]
February 25, 2026
Educating for humans in the lead
I cut my academic teeth working in initial teacher education. I spent a lot of that time on a teeny-tiny […]
February 23, 2026
AI shatters the pretence that academic polish was ever anything but gatekeeping
Universities are punishing students for doing what journals like Nature and Science explicitly permit their authors to do. This isn’t […]
February 9, 2026
What does authentic assessment mean in the context of AI?
In recent discussions about assessment in higher education, responses to generative AI have converged on a familiar solution: authentic assessment. […]
February 9, 2026
Revolutionizing University Assessments: From Essays to Portfolios
First posted on Substack The AI arms race still rages. Students will identify AI writing support tools, educators will rearm […]
January 27, 2026
What grade inflation panics miss about the real value of higher education
Cloaks swish. Cameras flash. It’s graduation day, the culmination of years of effort. It celebrates learning journeys whose outcomes have […]
January 26, 2026
Walk on by: the dilemma of the blind eye
by Dennis Sherwood Forty years on… I don’t remember much about my experiences at work some forty-odd years ago, but […]
December 17, 2025
Why is it so difficult to make reasonable adjustments when assessing disabled PGRs?
Universities are required under the Equality Act 2010 to make reasonable adjustments for disabled students. While it’s often much clearer […]
December 5, 2025
Algorithms aren’t the problem. It’s the classification system they support
The Office for Students (OfS) has published its annual analysis of sector-level degree classifications over time, and alongside it a […]
November 6, 2025