College to tackle feedback

The issue of assessment and feedback at Imperial has been addressed at this year’s Rector’s Away Day.

The Rector’s Away Day, which this year took place on October 21, is an annual meeting of senior Imperial staff. The focus of this year’s event was the ‘student experience’ and how it can be improved. The outcomes from the meeting, notably plans for more detailed and timely feedback, were announced on November 8 with a report and video from Rector Sir Keith O’Nions.

The Rector’s Away Day resulted in some key recommendations with respect to feedback. A statement from the Rector reveals that all Heads of Departments are to develop “action plans outlining measures already in place and measures that they will be introducing during the current academic year to improve the undergraduate student experience” by December.

Following on from a push for “strong and concerted action” on feedback by the Rector last year, departments are to consider various improvements to feedback, including providing students with early indications of “what constitutes feedback”, submission deadlines and when feedback will be returned. Departments are also to consider offering students “details of common mistakes made on a particular assignment, so they can avoid them in the future”. Also in the pipeline is potential implementation of a “system that could be used across departments to track the feedback given to students and monitor timeliness” by the College.

The outcome of the Away Day regarding accommodation was that the College intends to deliver the standards that students expect in terms of refurbishment of current accommodation. In addition, the College intends to look into the construction of new accommodation that fits students’ requirements of price, quality and location.

The quality and timeliness of feedback has been in the spotlight recently, further to Imperial’s disappointing performance in the National Student Survey (NSS). Imperial scored particularly poorly in the ranking for “assessment and feedback” (coming 163rd out of 168 nationally), not to mention shortfalls in areas such as teaching and “academic support”.

Some departments have already reacted to the College’s pledge to improve feedback. Professor Angus MacKinnon of the Department of Physics has sent a statement to staff, detailing its intention for markers to increase the usage of the word ‘feedback’, whether verbally or in writing. In a message to staff, MacKinnon stated, “I have had enough conversations with students over the last couple of years … to convince me that there is a real problem, which needs to be addressed.”

Imperial College Union’s recent response to the NSS highlighted that a long-term view towards feedback would be the production of a computer-based system to resolve a perceived “lack of clarity” in mark allocation, unfair marking and timeliness. The Union also suggested that ‘cohort analysis’ should be a possibility in order to spot trends with work.

Union President Scott Heath has suggested that PhD markers should receive “more assistance with marking” in the short term.

“I have already seen shocking examples of practice whereby a marker is given a list of six criteria which account for the entire mark allocation but no further guidance beyond that. If someone has a possible 10 marks to allocate for ‘written style’ and they are unsure how they should be given we have to question how the system will ever be fair unless that person marks everything for that year group.”

Whether staff will act upon the recommendations on an individual level is a question that will be answered over the coming months.