AssessmentUCL (Wiseflow) is the institutional digital assessment platform. AssesmentUCL was mandated for centrally managed exams in 2021-22 but is optional for all other assessments. The Digital Assessment Team have collaborated with a number of academic units to support both widescale adoption of Wiseflow and smaller scale ‘pilots’ that have been intended to build up local knowledge and understanding of the potential of the platform.
In the following case study Dr Alexander Steele, teaching fellow in Earth Sciences, talks about how they have been using FlowMulti (the online exam version of an assessment) to deliver Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) with negative marking.
What we did and why
In a first year undergraduate module on Petrology to petrogenesis we are keen to test student factual knowledge across a broad representation of course material. Student are given a 2-hour 100 question online MCQ exam. The questions are marked negatively, which means that the students receive three marks for each correct answer, no marks for any questions they leave unanswered and are deducted one mark for each incorrect answer.
AssessmentUCL marks all questions automatically and the students receive their marks quickly. Once marked the academic team have access to a collection of statistics from AssessmentUCL on the assessment.
Alexander’s benefits of this approach:
- This is a great way to test student factual knowledge across a broad representation of course material
- We can check understanding of key concepts – that helps the students and the staff
- The platform allows us to see statistics on student understanding and marks which allows us to improve the exam and our teaching for the future
