Quality Handbook Supplement 15A - Assessment Guidance

1.1 This guidance provides information and clarification to guide course teams in meeting the requirements for assessment management and operation as set out in Quality Handbook (QH) Section 15: Requirements for assessment management and operation.

1.2 Assessment requirements for course design are set out in QH Section 12: Course Design Requirements. Guidance on course design requirements are specified in QH Supplement 12A.

2.1 Assessment criteria are a set of statements that enable the colleague grading an assessment to judge whether the learning outcomes have been achieved. Standards are articulated for each criterion. These should clearly indicate what the students need to do to demonstrate that they have met the learning outcome(s) and reached the standard required. An assessment rubric articulates expectations for an assignment or piece of work by listing the criteria and performance level descriptions.

2.2  Course Leaders are responsible for maintaining an oversight of assessment grids and grading matrices at each level to ensure consistency, clarity, and appropriate contextualisation to the task.

2.3  Support with writing effective, student-centred, transparent grading matrices is available through the Educational Development Team, Education, Quality, and Partnerships (EQP). The Assessment and Feedback support includes Writing Student-Centred Rubrics workshops, examples of accessible rubrics, and interactive rubric activities to build assessment literacy. Guidance on writing effective grading criteria and rubrics is available by searching ‘educational development writing rubrics’ on Thrive at NTU.

2.4  Course and module teams are required to publish and disseminate clear briefs and assessment criteria for all tasks. There should be consistency in the use of terminology and wording to ensure clarity and transparency. The main approach to providing this information to students is via an assessment grid or grading matrix. The Accessibility of coursework assessment brief and instructions to students resource provides examples of accessibility challenges and accessibility recommendations, including format, layout, and language.

2.5 The NTU Assessment Good Practice Guide: Designing inclusive, authentic and artificial intelligence-ready assessment provides information about the Disabled Student Commitment which reflects our institutional commitment to ensure that all students have an accessible and supportive experience while studying at NTU.

3.1 Assessment management starts at the initial stage of planning of assessment and extends through to the determination of grades and results. Course teams must have processes in place to ensure the (a) validity of assessment; (b) standardisation; and (c) grading and feedback.

Validity of assessment

3.2  Validity refers to the extent to which an assessment accurately measures the knowledge, skills, or competencies it is designed to measure, ensuring clear alignment with the intended learning outcomes. To ensure the ongoing validity of each assessment, course and module teams must undertake regular review of the assessment task and its articulation.

3.3 It is advisable to ask external examiners to check the validity of exams in the beginning of the year. Peers that need to check the validity of assessment could include: course leaders, course managers, principal lecturers, subject leaders, Heads of Department, as appropriate. External examiners should check the validity of assessments that contribute to the award.

3.4  An outcome of the validity of assessment process may be the decision to amend the aspects of the assessment task and/or its articulation.

Standardisation

3.5  Standardisation must be undertaken prior to each assessment that is subject to grading. The purpose of the standardisation process is to establish a shared understanding of the expected standards, grading criteria, and assessment requirements, thereby promoting consistency in grading decisions both across different graders and across grading activities undertaken by the same grader over time.

3.6  It is advisable to use clearly structured rubrics to support transparent and consistent grading. Rubrics must demonstrate a clear alignment with the module’s grading criteria and module learning outcomes. Some Schools may choose to use contextualised, grade-based matrices that are levelled in accordance with the NTU generic assessment matrix.

3.7  Standardisation activities must be completed within the University's 15 working day feedback turnaround period to ensure that grading decisions are applied consistently and that feedback is provided to students within the required timescales.

3.8  Guidance on the recommended steps and expectations for the standardisation process is provided in Appendix One. A standardisation meeting template to support the recording of key discussions, decisions, and agreed actions arising from the meeting is provided in Appendix Two. A checklist for single markers to assist them in undertaking the standardisation process effectively and consistently is provided in Appendix Three.

External moderation

3.9  External moderation: Moderation has an external dimension where standards and fairness of the assessment process are validated by the external examiner at key stages. The primary focus of the External Examiner's involvement is to provide assurance regarding the consistency and standards of outcomes across the course, including through participation in the relevant Board of Examiners.

Where there is concern about the consistency and standards of outcomes across the course, the involvement of the external examiner may include reviewing a sample of student work but may be limited to receiving, for comment, the assessment tasks and checking the final results spreadsheets. A review of samples of assessed work undertaken by external examiners should take place on-site where possible (see QH Section 9: External Examining).

Anonymity

3.10  Anonymous marking is the assessment of a student’s work without knowledge of the student’s identity. It is used to limit the possibility of grades being inadvertently influenced by factors other than the qualities of the work under consideration.

3.11  Anonymous marking is one way of achieving fairness in assessment.

3.12 The course team is responsible for identifying and agreeing which of the assessed tasks will or will not be marked anonymously.

3.13 Transparency in a course team’s grading processes is central to building students’ trust and confidence in the assessment processes and challenging the potential for ‘perceptions of bias’.

3.14 The course team must take into account other considerations when choosing the most effective assessment for a module or course and it may not be possible to grade the chosen assessment anonymously.

3.15 Where it is considered impractical for the assessment method to be graded anonymously the course team must ensure that there is a sufficient measure of independence in the grading or standardisation practices to guard against ‘perceptions of bias’.

3.16 Examples of where it is considered impractical for the assessment method to be graded anonymously are: dissertations, presentations, performance / interaction, oral/aural elements, practice-based assessments, where feedback is given on work-in-progress, and where the grader may recognise the author of the work by its unique focus or content.

3.17 There may be circumstances where anonymity may be limited or cannot be guaranteed due to specific circumstances. These include situations where this is of benefit to the student. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

a. Assessment deadline extensions
b. Reasonable adjustments
c. Appeals and irregularities
d. Small cohorts

3.18 There is no requirement for anonymity for formative assessments.

Grading

3.19  Grades must be awarded in alignment with the assessment criteria. All module learning outcomes must be assessed and passed in order to pass the module (as specified in QH Section 12: Course Design Requirements).

3.20 Where an assessment element or sub-element is based on group work and the grade is awarded for the group's final output, the same grade is assigned to all group members and recorded as their individual grade. To address actual or perceived differences in individual contribution course teams may decide to include an additional individual assessment aspect that evaluates each student's contribution to, engagement with, or reflection on, the group work. This is assessed separately and awarded an individual grade.

3.21  A student must achieve at least a pass grade in each assessment element in order to meet the learning outcomes and pass the module. In some cases, an element may be made up of smaller units of assessment, referred to as sub‑elements. A key feature of a sub‑element is that it does not need to be passed individually, provided the overall element to which it contributes is passed. A task cannot be designated as a sub‑element if the course team considers it essential for demonstrating a required learning outcome. Sub‑elements should be used only in exceptional circumstances to avoid over‑assessment across a programme. Where sub‑elements are included, this is typically because one or more learning outcomes cannot be adequately assessed through a single task.

3.22  The aggregation method for sub-elements is determined when the module assessment is approved and is based on the particular characteristics of the assessment tasks involved. Approaches to aggregation of sub-element grades:

Holistic approach: the element grade is based on an overall assessment of students’ performance in relation to the module learning outcomes, based on the student’s achievement across a range of sub-elements. The grading matrix shows the relationship between the criteria being assessed and the module learning outcomes. Student work is referenced against this to assign an overall grade.

Analytical approach: a separate grade is assigned to each sub-element assessment piece. These separate sub-element grades are input into Banner which then calculates the overall element grade according to the pre-approved weightings of each sub-element. The grading matrix shows the relationship between the criteria being assessed and the module learning outcomes.

‘Best of’ approach: the final element grade is based on a selection of the best grades from a set of sub-element grades. An example would be a portfolio which comprises five lab reports, where only the best four sub-element grades actually contribute to the final element grade. In these cases all sub-elements must be weighted equally.

Numeric approach: For some assessments, a numeric approach may be used at the initial stage, particularly for multiple‑choice or objectively scored short‑answer tasks (e.g. right/wrong or true/false). Sub‑elements receive numeric scores to generate a raw score, which is converted to a grade using an approved conversion method. These grades are entered into Banner, which calculates the overall element grade using pre‑approved weightings for each sub-element.

Adjustment of grades

3.23 The extent of the adjustment of grades where legitimate grounds have been agreed is dependent on the nature of the issue identified. Typically, this will be one of the following:

a. Systematic adjustment to a range of grades for a particular assessment task, or for a module (for example, where across-module moderation has identified that a module stands out because there are a disproportionate number of fails).
b. Adjustment to all the grades awarded for a particular part of an assessment task for all those students who attempted that part (for example, where an issue has been identified with a particular question on an examination paper).
c. Adjustment to all the grades for all students on an assessment task (for example where there has been disruption in the examination room).

Submission of grades

3.24 Grades should be submitted to the Student Data and Systems Team using grade collection sheets as soon as possible after standardisation and grading. The Student Data team provides guidance to schools to complete the grading sheets appropriately. For queries about grade collection, colleagues can contact:

adb.systems@ntu.ac.uk (ADB Systems):
Nottingham School of Art & Design
School of Architecture, Design & the Built Environment

blsstudentr1@ntu.ac.uk (BLS Student Records):
Nottingham Business School
Nottingham Law School
School of Social Sciences

castracking1@ntu.ac.uk (CAS Tracking):
School of Science and Technology
School of Animal, Rural and Environment Sciences

Retention of student work

3.25 Schools may operate local policies to enable students to view examination scripts. The University’s retention policy provides details about the requirements for the retention of students’ assessed work.

4.1 The feedback should clearly align with the grade awarded.

4.2 Actionable feedback and feedforward supports students in reflecting on their progress.

4.3  Feedback helps students by giving them information about how they are doing in assignments and exams across their course. Feedback should be clear and supportive, helping students understand their strengths and where they can improve to reach their full academic potential.

4.4  Within 16-19 education there is an emphasis upon, and value given to, traditional exams to assess students (Curriculum and Assessment Review Final Report - GOV.UK). Students may need support to understand how to be successful in other forms of assessment.

4.5  The purpose of formative feedback is developmental, providing ongoing, timely feedback to students throughout their learning journey. Its goal is to help students learn more effectively by offering insights into their performance and guiding improvements or maintenance. This type of assessment encourages reflective practice, where students think about their learning process to enhance their understanding and skills.

4.6  The purpose of summative feedback is to measure the degree of a learner's success in meeting specific assessment criteria, providing an overall evaluation of whether the intended learning outcomes for a module or course have been achieved. Grades awarded in summative assessment usually contribute to the final grade of the course, module, or award. Summative feedback can also be used developmentally to ‘feedforward’ into future work.

4.7  High quality feedback:

a. Is action-focused and concise, and clearly communicates what good performance is. This can be facilitated by explaining the learning goals of the assessment task and providing clear criteria and standards of performance to students, prior to the task.
b. Facilitates the development of self-assessment and reflection if students can be helped to recognise the strengths and weaknesses in their performance in relation to the grading criteria, and next steps to achieve higher grading criteria.  
c. Encourages teacher and peer dialogue around learning.
d. Is provided in good time and revisited in a timely manner to ‘feedforward’ into revisions or future work.
e. Encourages self-belief and positive motivation to support reaching their potential.

4.8  Planning opportunities to revisit and use feedback at the course level facilitates effectiveness in terms of frequency, timeliness, and the development of student understanding.

4.9  Feedback can be produced in a variety of ways, for example: through a tutor, peer, self-reflection, etc. Feedback on assessment may take a variety of forms and can come from a variety of sources, including tutors, peers, external agencies or students themselves. Feedback can also be individual or given to the cohort as a whole (generic).

4.10  Students can be signposted to Tutors who offer advice on reassessments from the Academic Engagement Team: Learning and Teaching within the Library. This includes one-to-one appointments, bookable workshops, and interactive, on-demand resources provided by the Academic Skills and Knowledge Hub (ASK Hub) in NOW.

4.11  Reassessment, particularly during the summer, may impact upon students’ accommodation and finances. Students can also be signposted to support available through Student Services Centres and NTSU support such as housing advice, and Employability support.

Encouraging students to use feedback

4.12  Students should be supported to participate in evaluating their learning and furthering their academic development via meaningful engagement with feedback.

4.13  It is strongly recommended that course teams consider the following practices to support students to understand and engage meaningfully with feedback:

a. Engaging students in activities such as reflection on received feedback during seminars or tutorials;
b. A planned series of tasks where students apply feedback from previous assessments to complete the next;
c. Structured peer feedback activities;
d. Guided opportunities to engage with feedback particularly within the first year of study.

4.14  Student engagement with feedback is encouraged by clear communication about the purpose, value, and characteristics of feedback.

4.15The Assessment Schedule and Feedback Plan (ASFP) plays a key role in students’ understanding of, and engagement with, feedback.

4.16  In clearly communicating feedback, or facilitating peer feedback, tutors should be mindful of the diversity of students on the course and work to ensure fairness in feedback provision.

4.17  Feedback can also include encouraging students through signposting to support outside of the course e.g. academic skills support, disability support, and mental health and wellbeing support.

The Assessment Schedule and Feedback Plan

4.18 The ASFP will include clear information about the:

a. Course Assessment Strategy;
b. The value and purpose of feedback;
c. assessment tasks;
d. assessment submission dates;
e. dates of key formative tasks which support summative assessments;
f. feedback schedule with information on feedback types and format accompanied by the pedagogic rationale.
g. return dates for student work and feedback.

4.19  ASFPs should be used to manage submission deadlines so that the period of closure at Christmas does not negatively impact the overall student experience of feedback on the course.

The standardisation process enables a shared understanding of standards and grading criteria and supports consistency in applying these between graders and of a given grader between grading instances. This ensures fair, consistent, and reliable grading judgements across graders, modules, and cohorts. The standardisation process can also ensure consistency in feedback given to students.

Standardisation is one part of the process of managing assessment and grading. There are a number of processes in addition to standardisation that assure fairness in grading, including double or team grading of a sample of assessments for grading dissertations and major projects or studio work at the final award level, and pre-exam board consistency checks. This approach does not preclude the use of some light touch sample checking following the grading process, however this cannot extend the 15 working day feedback window.

Standards refers to what students must do to achieve a particular grade (described in the assessment grade descriptors) and may apply across all work at a particular level. Criteria may be specific to a particular assignment and refers to attributes or properties (see also ‘2. Articulating assessment criteria’ above for further information and support with articulating assessment criteria).

Standardisation takes place prior to the grading of every graded assessment.

Steps Two and Three below must be completed within 15 working days of the assessment deadline, except for the specific assessments identified in QH Section 15: Requirements for assessment management and operation. This timeframe excludes University closure days.

Step One: Shared understanding of assessment criteria and standards

As part of assessment planning and design, and ensuring the validity of assessment, a shared understanding of the assessment criteria and standards and how these can be evidenced in student work is reached between all those involved in the grading process for that assessment. This is then communicated to students.
In cases where there is one grader due to a small cohort size, then refer to step three below.

Step Two: Standardisation of grading and feedback between graders to ensure consistency

a) Familiarisation with grading

For a similar assessment that has been effectively graded by the same grading team previously, undertake re-familiarisation with the grading using a sample of submissions that illustrate performance across a range of grades including those at grade boundaries. This enables the grading criteria and feedback standard to be discussed and confirmed.

For a new and/or revised assessment and/or where there are new graders on the grading team, independently grade a sample of work as soon as this is available using the assessment criteria and standards agreed in step one above. The sample should normally involve 3% of assessed student work, or be of sufficient number to enable effective standardisation across the grade profile.

Graders may find it useful to use the Standardisation Meeting Template in Appendix Two to collate grades in advance of the calibration meeting.

b) Standardisation of grading and feedback

The graders then meet to establish a shared understanding of the application of the assessment criteria and standards to the assessment. The focus of feedback for the assessment task is also agreed to ensure that it is consistent and relevant for this assessment and modules to be undertaken in the future.
It may be useful to:

Use the Standardisation Meeting Template (Appendix Two) to record notes and actions from the meeting.

Review the sample feedback to agree what it should focus upon and how it can be actioned in future work. The feedback should clearly align with the grade awarded.

Create a document with agreed links to signpost students to further development. Students can be signposted to the Library for guidance on finding information, academic writing, referencing, technology and software, and maths and statistics provided by the Academic Skills and Knowledge Hub (ASK Hub) in NOW. Students can also be signposted to the Academic Engagement Team: Learning and Teaching within the Library, for advice on reassessments.

Consider how follow up support is communicated to colleagues to ensure ongoing consistency of grading.

Access the Educational Leadership and Management [SL4.1]pages on the Scholarship Career Development at NTU Hub for more information about the course leader and module leader role and support available.

Step Three: Ensuring consistency between grading instances

During the grading process you may find the following helpful:

Prior to grading, review and understand the grading criteria, assessment task information, and feedback expectations and clarify any uncertainties with the relevant colleague(s).

During grading, refer regularly to the task description and agreed assessment criteria and standards.

Revisit earlier assessments that you have graded once you are familiar with the task and how to apply the grading criteria to check consistency.

After grading is complete review and check for consistency of grades across assessments, alignment between grades and feedback, and consistency of feedback given to students.

Where a similar assessment may be used the following year, note assessments that may be useful as samples, such as those at grade boundaries or those that exemplify a mid-range grade within a grade band.

You may find it useful to use the Grading Standardisation Checklist (Appendix Three) to support individual grading.

Where colleagues are new to grading, unfamiliar with the assessment, or where an assessment is new or has undergone significant change, the course leader must ensure that colleagues are provided with bespoke support throughout the assessment and grading process.

You may find it helpful to note any proposed enhancements to assessment design and ideas for engaging students in understanding and applying criteria that have been considered as part of the standardisation process .

Oversight and External Assurance

The process for ensuring effective standardisation should be clearly articulated and consistently operated by all those involved in the standardisation process.

At levels that contribute to the final award, the external examiner must be able to monitor the standardisation process.

Standardisation must be overseen by the course leader, and records kept and made available to the external examiner.

The course team must indicate in their assessment strategy how the external examiner will be assured of the rigour of assessment grading and feedback.

Evidence of standardisation should be provided to external examiners which summarises the process and its outcome.

Roles and responsibilities for the standardisation process are articulated in QH Section 15: Requirements for assessment management and operation, ‘8. Roles and responsibilities’.

This template can be adapted to suit your meeting.

Date of meeting:
Module code:
Cohort date:
Assignment title:
Names of graders:

Purpose of the meeting:

To establish a shared understanding of the application of the assessment criteria and standards to the assessment.

Process:

Graders met on [date] to agree the sample.  
Graders refamiliarized themselves with the agreed assessment criteria and standards.
Graders completed independent summative grading and shared by the agreed date of [date].
Graders met to discuss the decision making process and agree actions.

Sample chosen and rationale:

[List student N Numbers  and include rationale for sample]

Assessment criteria reviewed in this submission:
[Assessment Criteria 1]
[Assessment Criteria 2]
[Assessment Criteria 3]

TABLE

Feedback standardisation:
[Note agreements about feedback expectations]

Agreements reached:

Actions:

Follow up of actions [if relevant]:

Assessment:
Module:
Grader:
Date:

Prior to Grading

☐ I have reviewed the assessment brief and the agreed assessment criteria and standards and understand how these can be evidenced in student work.

☐ I have clarified any uncertainties with the relevant colleagues.

During Grading

☐ I have referred regularly to the task description and applied the agreed assessment criteria and standards.

☐ Once familiar with the task and how to apply the grading criteria and standards, I have revisited earlier scripts to check consistency.

☐ Where a similar assessment may be used the following year I have noted assessments that may be useful as samples in future (such as those at grade boundaries or those that exemplify a mid-range grade within a grade band).

Feedback Quality

☐ The feedback clearly aligns with the grade awarded and includes how it can be actioned in future work.

☐ I have signposted students to further development resources where relevant.

After Grading

☐ I have reviewed and checked for consistency of grading across assessments, alignment between grades and feedback, and consistency of feedback given to students.

Reflection and Enhancement

☐ Ideas for enhancement of assessment design have been noted and will be fed into future module review where relevant.