University Homepage School Homepage School Contacts School Search

EUCLID PROGRESS - ASSESSMENT

The following is a summary of recent developments as we move towards full implementation of the EUCLID Assessment system.  Please contact Neil McGillivray if you'd like any further information.  All EUCLID meetings are summarised on the Implementation Co-Ordinator's Log.

Date	Development
01-04-09	University announces that the scope of the project has now been reduced, meaning that the future of student selection and assessment is now unclear. EUCLID have cancelled all April update meetings and hope to provide full information about the future of the project towards the end of May 2009. Please contact Neil McGillivray or Stuart Anderson with any questions or comments.
20-01-09	EUCLID announce the PSG decision to extend the project by 12 months, effectively delaying the migration of courses, student selection and assessment parts of the project until the start of 2010/11.  The work on migrating the DPTs will continue, with these being managed via EUCLID from the start of 2009/10. Informatics will now be required to extend the life of the ITO database until after the resit exam diet of August 2010.
11-12-08	EUCLID provided all CSE Schools with an early introduction of the screens that will support the CCAM, PCAM and student selection parts of the system. Schools were given the opoprtunity to comment and feedback.  Particular concerns raised by ITO included; the availability of the portal at selection time, the relationship between course instances and VUG courses, the numbering of the weeks in the timetabling tool, the opportunity to have students register onto tutorial groups themselves.  EUCLID also confirm that once a student has registered their course choice, any subsequent change will need to be made manually by the ITO... the earlier the portal opens for selection, the more changes the ITO is likely to have to process!
05-11-08	EUCLID confirm that student selection will not need to be confirmed or approved by a Director of Studies.  Students will be invited to enter the selection portal at an agreed date (this may be as early as April prior to the September of the following session) and enter their course choices.  These choices can exist in a provisional state for a number of weeks, until the student re-enters the portal and confirms that these course choices are now final.  Note that the student can manage any swapping of course choices prior to the confirmation, but that after the confirmation only a member of staff (DoS or ITO) will be able to edit their choices.  We therefore want to encourage students to leave their choices as provisional for as long as they can, before pressing the confirm button as near to the end of week 2 (the final date for Sem 1 registration) as possible.  EUCLID also confirm that students must always be entered for 120pts (or 180pts for MSc) at all times... this is consistent with existing ITO policy.
15-10-08	College Office provide information on Assessment marking scales, mark scaling and course pass/fail criteria, see here for full document.  College Teaching & Learning Committee due to discuss this soon, with a few working groups to be formed to assist with CSE Phase 1 planning.  Informatics have asked to be represented on these groups.
19-09-08	EUCLID Presentation of Assessment to Informatics staff, 2.00pm in AT 4.12.  Staff found this to be a useful first look at the assessment pages, noting concern about how the system asks you to navigate through some of the coursework mark forms.  There was also a discussion about the recording of special circumstance information, and how best to document any mark changes prior to the BoE (i.e. during the coursework assessment stages).  John Cooke (from EUCLID) admitted that more work needed to be done, pointing out that a re-ordering of some of the forms might help.
03-09-08	EUCLID provide further confirmation that all marks entered into the system must be out of 100, even for individual exam questions.  It is also confirmed that the standard PASS/FAIL boundary is 40%, menaing we can't use the minimum coursework mark of 35% for non-hons courses from the start of 2009/10.  More information on the standardisation of progression rules (mostly from UG2) will be made available during Jan/Feb 2009.
13-06-08	Ian Stark attends a similar presentation, also noting that EUCLID are pushing for a common progression rule (in particular from UG2 to UG3), but that APC have still to decide on this.  This might mean a change in our Hons progression rules after INF2, Ian will discuss this more with Stuart via email.  Ian also observed that EUCLID really only want marks to be entered manually typing directly into the web form, and that there was no automatic import of marks available at this stage.
11-06-08	Stuart and Neil attended a demonstration of some of the course mark entry pages, to be included in the Assessment part of the new system.  There is still some work to do but the early signs are encouraging.  At this stage I can confirm that all marks entered into the system will be percentages, and that the pass mark for all courses, and components of courses, will always be 40%. Compensation and Progression rules still require clarification, but work is now moving forward.  We also have confirmation that the 08/09 data will be added to the new EUCLID system for text and checking purposes, prior to go-live in 09/10.  The University will be adopting a common scaling system, details to follow.
30-04-08	EUCLID confirm the system will be able to record questions within an exam.  Previously there had been concern that you'd only be able to enter a single mark for the student's exam performance.  Each course will now have two components of assessment; coursework and exam.  We'll be able to record a number of individually weighted coursework marks (in the usual way) and individual parts of an exam (i.e. store marks for questions 1, 2 and 3) but report only the overall exam mark (in the usual way).
30-04-08	EUCLID confirm that the system will be able to store information on particular exam rubrics.   The standard Informatics Hons/MSc rubric of 'answer q1 and either q2 or q3' will be included in the system.  The system will then be able to calculate a student's exam mark based on the rules associated with each rubric type, and the number of marks being returned for that student.  Where a student completes all 3 questions of a 'either q2 or q3' paper the system has the ability to automatically award the best mark from either q2 or q3.  This is in line with existing Informatics practice, and means that all data will be held in the student record, rather than a sum being done out of the system.
30-04-08	The Assessment part of the system will be able to scale marks, although this isn't likely to appear in the initial roll out.  The Assessment Working Group is currently looking at streamlining this across the University (or the three Colleges) before offering it as part of a revised roll out.

Return to the Informatics EUCLID Information Homepage