1) getting an initial understanding of the standard
2) keeping up with changes to the standard.

I was at a panel meeting last week looking at data standards, and a comment was made there that where new versions of standards are release as a complete reprint, folk are unlikely to read them. Instead, what we need to do is communicate the diff(erence).

I think where assessment is concerned you can write an assessment along the lines of: “how has the standard changed between previous.version and current.version, and what impact is this likely to have on x, y z”

It may also be possible to frame assessment around:

1) identifying original assumptions, particular as they related to the climate at the time the assumptions were made;

2) comparing the current situation with the situation then to see whether or not the assumptions still hold;

3) identifying which elements of the standard (or whatever) were tightly linked to one or more assumptions;

4) identifying how different parts of the standard are dependent on other parts of the standard, and seeing what side effects changing assumptions might have as they ripple through dependent parts of the standard,

In this way, you focus attention on the mutable parts of the standard that are dependent on, or influenced by external factors. (Of course, I suspect standards makers would like to think their standards are purely abstract creations that exist largely outside of time, space and assumption;-)

This looks very interesting to me. I’m currently involved with Middlesex University in writing a work-based learning module on courses information management (based on XCRI). One of the challenges of designing the curriculum is that it has to have a shelf-life of several years, during which time things will have moved on considerably – it’s quite likely that technologies will have changed the domain significantly. Ideally it would be very useful to get the learners to reflect on these possible changes, and to comment on them as part of assessment. This could be very similar to your ‘consultation-framed’ approach.

But how do we handle this kind of assessment (as summative assessment), when we don’t necessarily have a yardstick to measure against?

Alan Paull
alan@alanpaull.co.uk