Assessment of educational services [New Zealand]

Abstract

New Zealand Patent Number: 568561. A web-based system comprising a server, database and a web-portal to provide an integrated feedback management system for the assessment of educational services is disclosed. The system comprises an interface to input definitions of graduate attributes at various levels of complexity and to input definitions of learning outcomes related to teaching theory at various levels of complexity; a database to map relationships between graduate attributes at particular levels of complexity and their related teaching methods and assessment items; and learning outcomes at particular levels and their related teaching methods and assessment items; and a processor to automatically respond to the assessment results for a particular student and determine and record both the graduate attribute levels of complexity, and learning outcomes levels, achieved by that student. The system further includes an assessment results and moderation functionality to provide one or more of the following moderation settings: first, where the moderator operates to force mean and standardisation equalisation for multiple markers for the same question; second, where the moderator may force mean and standardisation equalisation for multiple markers for different questions; and final result moderation, where the moderator may alter the cutoff points for the awarded grades, alter the awarded grades manually or increase the standard deviation