Principles of 2020/21 Online Assessment periods

To be able to deliver a workable, robust and fair online assessments the following principles have been agreed by the School leadership. These are underpinned by the LSE Assessment Principles agreed at Academic Board in May 2018.

(1)   Assessment during the January 2021 online assessment period will take the form of:

(2)   Programme directors and course convenors are strongly encouraged (where possible) to replace their original exam assessment with coursework assessment over a longer period of time.

(3)   Any online assessment should be designed to ensure that the students’ learning outcomes on their courses are tested. There is no need to-reassess learning outcomes that have already been tested.

(4)   Colleagues may want to consider changing the weighting of existing assignments and removing any outstanding assessments worth less than 40%.

(5)   Changes to assessment need to be approved by either Departmental Teaching Committee Chairs or Exam Board Chairs and a brief record kept and reported to TQARO.

(6)   Where possible departments should try to follow normal assessment scrutiny procedures and External Examining consultation, even if this is adjusted significantly due to constraints.

(7)   Assessment should be inclusive, accessible and equitable. As far as is practicable and without compromising academic standards, all assessment elements and procedures should not disadvantage any group or individuals. For more information, please see this accessible assessment section in the LSE Assessment Toolkit. (A quick guide on inclusive online assessment is being prepared by the Eden Centre)

(8)   Students will be preparing for their assessment in a time of great uncertainty, stress and possibly a long way from the LSE. Students need to be given a clear, concise description of the approach to assessment on their courses, including timing and submission and any changes to marking criteria.

(9)   Course convenors should consider whether they need to revise marking criteria for new/revised methods of assessment. For more information, please the section assessment criteria or contact your Eden Centre departmental adviser.

(10) While trusting our students to undertake their assessments honestly and fairly, colleagues may consider a range of approaches for mitigating the possibility of misconduct including asking students to sign an academic integrity statement, randomisation of problem sets, randomised and selective interviews as well as the use of Turnitin.