“WISEflow has become a key part of the assessment process”: Arts University Bournemouth on using WISEflow
Arts University Bournemouth students performing Julius Caesar. All images courtesy of Arts University Bournemouth.
Arts University Bournemouth (AUB) offers specialist education in art, design, media and performance across the creative industries to approximately 3,700 students across undergraduate, postgraduate taught and research degrees and a pre-degree Art Foundation course; in addition, it provides a wide range of short and bespoke courses. AUB started using WISEflow in 2017. What follows is a conversation between Alison Aspery, Head of Quality and Standards, Vicky Morcombe, Senior Student Records Officer, Registry and Alex Bradbeer, Senior Systems Administration in Digital Learning, Digital Services.
Context
AUB approved a new Strategic Plan in 2014 in which it had a clear vision of a learning community that was connected, collaborative and innovative; an effective and appropriate digital learning environment formed a fundamental element in the delivery of this vision. A Digital Environment for Learning Teaching and Assessment (DELTA) group was set up. Following a series of cross-university meetings with students, academic, technical and professional services staff, priorities were identified and a number of projects were established, one of these being the digital assessment project. It was recognised that this could bring key benefits in terms of achieving consistency and efficiency of assessment systems. For students, many of whom had used an on-line assessment system in school or college, it was a clear indication that systems were in place at AUB appropriate to a 21st century education.
Alison Aspery (AA): When Arts University Bournemouth started moving towards digitising our assessment process, Alex was on board from the beginning. Vicky and I came in once the system had been purchased. I managed the implementation programme.
Vicky Morcombe (VM): Alex and I are two of the three license administrators. We’re very hands-on.
Alex Bradbeer (AB): And I’m the guilty party in terms of finding WISEflow. I saw a demo and initially thought it would be useful for our essays and written submissions, but it’s expanded into everything now. This is our fourth year with WISEflow and nearly every unit on every qualification-based course is using it.
AB: Because we’re an arts- and media-based institution, we have a lot of physical items – things like sculptures, paintings, prints of photographs, sketchbooks – so it’s the pairing of the digital and the physical that’s important for us. We were also looking for a system that could cope with large file sizes and offered a plagiarism facility.
AA: We have a very different curriculum, but we also needed to integrate whatever solution we chose with our student records system, (SITS). Those were the two key requirements we had to meet: one involved thinking fairly creatively as to what people could submit and how they could demonstrate what had been submitted; the other was ensuring the solution we chose actually made us more efficient. Because yes, if we just had the one aspect, it might have clarified assessment deadlines, but it wouldn’t have assisted at all in some of the administrative work. In fact the work would have doubled – extracting marks out of WISEflow and then inputting them into the records system.
VM: SITS integration had to happen, it was a given. We needed to be able to get the marks out of the system and back into SITS rather than create more work. What we achieved in the three months before implementation of the system was quite a miracle, really. Without integration, it would have been a retrograde step. We were really lucky: we had a great consultant from our SITS provider, Tribal, a team here at AUB with significant expertise and UNIwise on tap, which allowed us to iron out issues as they happened. We particularly valued the willingness of UNIwise to customise and be adaptable to our particular needs.
AB: We have struck up a good relationship with UNIwise and that has enabled us to work together on various areas of development; one of these being the rubrics element. We mocked up an idea of what we’d like and, lo and behold, six months later, UNIwise produced something that was exactly what we’d asked for. It could have been a coincidence, but we went with it! We thought, this is a company that we can grow with. The rubrics element literally translates from our Word document process of completing sections in relation to each learning outcome. The introduction of rubrics has allowed students to access both marks and feedback simultaneously. Previously the feedback was attached separately and some students experienced problems in accessing this, particularly when using different devices; now it is all in one place.
“The students love WISEflow: 92.2% of them said they found the system extremely easy to use.”
AA: In terms of implementation, we had a strong project team with a wide range of expertise. It was led from the top – the Deputy Vice Chancellor made it clear that her weight was behind the project. It was useful having that message. And we built on our experience of working closely with academics, in order to win hearts and minds through personal contact. Both Vicky and Alex had really good relationships with everyone, and this meant that we had a certain amount of goodwill that we’d built up over the years, so people were prepared to give us a chance. We were very honest with them and asked them to go along with us and they did.
Following training of the project team, we combined with UNIwise to provide introductory training workshops for academic representatives from each course. And then members of the team went out to the studios and classrooms in support. When we had a hand-in, there was always a lot of staff there, especially during the first year, to make sure that both students and staff were happy with the process. It really helped that we had a brilliant project manager from UNIwise. With everyone at UNIwise, there was that genuine interest in how we do things. It was a bit of a culture shock because in Denmark universities do things in a very similar way, whereas the UK higher education system conforms to the same principles but delivery is very different depending on the nature of the particular institution. For us as an institution delivering courses in the arts, our delivery and systems reflect this specialism. But UNIwise went out of its way to try and think around what we were trying to do and to respond accordingly. I’m quite sure we use WISEflow in a different way to quite a lot of other institutions, and that was often because our project manager suggested it.
AB: We rolled out the system in a very phased way. The first year, it was introduced just for Year 1 students, which was a safety net because Year 1 results don’t count towards degree classification. Staff were generally playing it pretty safe. Submission of work was mainly getting students to take a photo of the work or to upload a written evaluation.
VM: It was this systematic, considered approach, that started to convince staff of the benefits of WISEflow. In the second year, Year 1 and Year 2 used WISEflow, and we introduced rubrics for Year 1 students. Now, in the fourth year, all HE students are using WISEflow, and all are using rubrics. Because we knew at the start that we were going to be systematic, management was reassured about the project and how we were going to approach it – a phased implementation was more comfortable than a big bang. Now 3,500 students use WISEflow.
AB: The strength we have is that there’s parity. All the courses use it. It’s not a case of one school or one course using it. Every student has the same experience. Staff had to think a bit more laterally in terms of what the students were submitting digitally. In the first units, when they tend to be much more creative in getting the students to take risks, students could work on something on screen or in papier-mâché. One solution was for students to take a photo of the final item – they’re still using WISEflow, but it triggers the assessment process, so staff had something they could go back to that would remind them of the piece without having to rifle through boxes of stuff. Other courses chose to have the final evaluation or written element in WISEflow. I initially thought that there was a percentage that WISEflow would not be able to solve, but the team was encouraged to try and find something that every course could do. I’d say now that about 99% of our stuff is digital – it’s only the acting and film courses that have one unit that they do with Flowattend, so it’s something that they literally can’t do anything digital with, but it still triggers the assessment process.
As time has gone by, some staff have decided to get students to submit all their images or a PDF of the work, or repackaged the idea of a sketchbook, so that it’s now done in a digital format. WISEflow meets the demands of what we call SAF: submission, assessment and feedback. We used to have an issue that courses were using a variety of platforms to get students to submit digitally – email, OneDrive, Dropbox, WeTransfer, DVDs, USB sticks. WISEflow provides us with one central platform where things can be kept. It also enables us to publish both feedback and the mark at the same time. We use WISEflow as a 360-degree system; it’s everything – it includes our referrals, our mitigation. Students have become very familiar with it. Staff know that’s the location they go to. They’re not asking, is this is on Moodle? It’s in one location.
“WISEflow has enabled a more consistent approach.”
VM: We know that the feedback is going to go out on a specific day because every unit flow is set up with deadline dates – so we can give a gentle reminder. It’s not ad hoc; it’s structured and consistent. Feedback will be out within four weeks. If they want to go any later, the course leaders have to justify it to the students. It’s brought back consistency across all the courses. Similarly, when academics used to input the marks themselves, it was much harder to monitor progress and in the days before the exam board we would realise we were missing marks. What WISEflow enabled us to do is to give some fixed transparent deadlines, that are always monitored. We found in the first year of using WISEflow that the exam board was a lot smoother; we didn’t have last minute gaps to fill. For such an important meeting we are very confident that everything is ready. We’re in complete control; we know exactly where we’re at.
AA: WISEflow has enabled a more consistent approach. With COVID-19, it’s been absolutely critical in enabling assessment to continue. We spent a good part of the Easter break adjusting things because of the pandemic, which was a terrific team effort. The system is sufficiently flexible, and although there was an overwhelming amount of work involved in changing deadlines, WISEflow does make it relatively easy to do that. The system stood up to the pressure we put it under during the COVID-19 pandemic.
VM: Consistency is the biggest win for us. It’s the norm now. We’re very lucky that it’s the whole university that uses it.
AA: One of the things that we find is that academics are engaging and thinking about it more creatively. In the first year, the Deputy Vice Chancellor was very keen that we should get student views. The students love it: 92.2% of them said they found the system extremely easy to use. We were getting comments like “easy peasy lemon squeezy”. It was that positive. To be honest, students probably adapted more quickly than the staff did. Overall, WISEflow has become, in a remarkably quick time, a key part of the assessment process.
In the future, we’re looking to work with UNIwise on the question of second-marking, moderation and team marking in WISEflow.
