• Section 1 - Introduction
• Section 2 - Purpose
• Section 3 - Scope
• Section 4 - Principles for Undertaking External Peer Review of Assessment Standards
• Effective
• Efficient and sustainable
• Transparent
• Capacity building
• Section 5 - Peer Review of Assessment Standards – Preparation and Matching
• Initiating a Peer Review of Assessment Project
• Project Administration and Review Methodology
• Section 6 - Peer Review of Assessment Standards - The Review Process
• Section 7 - Roles and Responsibilities
• Faculty
• Academic Program Director
• Subject Coordinator
• Academic Quality and Standards Division
• Learning, Teaching and Curriculum
• Section 8 - References and Resources
• Section 9 - Definitions
• Section 10 - Appendix 1 - Guide to the Selection of Student Work Samples
• Stratified Sampling
• Section 11 - Appendix 2 - Peer Review Materials Checklist
• Section 12 - Appendix 3 - Participant Agreement
• Section 13 - Appendix 4 - Peer Review of Assessment Report Template

Section 1 - Introduction

(1) The intent of the Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2021 is to ensure that higher education institutions inform their own operations, particularly teaching and learning, through external comparisons. External referencing is expected to inform improvements and to provide a backdrop to the monitoring of student performance, student success and the quality and validity of assessments and marking.

(2) The focus of external referencing in the Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2021 is comparisons of courses or units of study and of student achievement. This does not preclude an institution from undertaking much broader comparative activities across any aspect of its operations, including through benchmarking.

(3) To meet specific obligations in the Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2021, the Assessment and Feedback Policy requires that course and subject review and improvement activities include evidence of regular external referencing against comparable courses of study, for selected units of study within courses.

Section 2 - Purpose

(4) This Procedure provides a method for external referencing of assessment standards, through an external peer review of assessment process, conducted with another higher education provider.

(5) External peer review of assessment provides evidence that assessment methods and student grading are appropriate, aligned to the unit and course learning outcomes and are broadly comparable with those occurring in similar courses offered by other higher education providers.

Section 3 - Scope

(6) While external peer review of assessment is not required in all subjects in a course, at a minimum, this activity must be undertaken regularly (that is, at least once between formal course reviews) in one or more subjects in a course that assure the attainment of course learning outcomes, within a course or a course cluster (in the event that that subject assures course learning outcomes for more than one course).

(7) External peer review of assessment may be undertaken in any subject to provide insights into the effectiveness of assessment practices towards the attainment of subject and where applicable, course learning outcomes.

(8) The University, faculties and the academic units therein, may undertake other external referencing activities, such as benchmarking, and can refer to the Quality Assurance and Enhancement Policy, and relevant guides for information on the approach and methodology.

Section 4 - Principles for Undertaking External Peer Review of Assessment Standards

Effective

(9) Enables the external referencing of assessment methods, grading and students’ attainment of learning outcomes across comparable courses of study. Supports both the quality enhancement and quality assurance of courses and units.

Efficient and sustainable

(10) Provides a streamlined, efficient, and sustainable process for external peer review of assessment that can be operationalised and used routinely by UOW and other institutions.

Transparent

(11) Engages multiple perspectives and facilitates critical discussion between teaching staff across comparable courses of study to support consensus building around standards of student learning outcomes.

Capacity building

(12) Contributes to the professional development of participating staff and the formation of disciplinary and cross disciplinary communities of practice.

Section 5 - Peer Review of Assessment Standards – Preparation and Matching

Initiating a Peer Review of Assessment Project

(13) A peer review of assessment project will typically be initiated by way of a recommendation from a course review to support the interim monitoring of course quality within the course review cycle.

(14) The Academic Quality and Standards Division will establish and maintain a peer review of assessment schedule to assist in scheduling of projects.

(15) Recommendations for external referencing of assessment that arise from Course Reviews will inform the peer review of assessment schedule, however the Faculty may engage the Academic Quality and Standards Division to initiate a project at any time.  

(16) In consultation with the Associate Dean Education, the Academic Program Director (or other named course leadership role) identifies the subject/s for which external peer review of assessment will be undertaken.  Several factors may influence subject selection, including the course structure, recent changes to a subject, course or assessment, and resourcing.

(17) Accreditation processes for professionally accredited courses that include the review of and commentary on assessment may meet the requirement for peer review of assessment if they:

1. are aligned with clause 5 of these Procedures, and
2. involve the review and assessment of student work samples.

(18) The Academic Program Director and Subject Coordinator will identify an appropriate provider to partner with or contact the Academic Quality and Standards Division to find a suitable provider via the National Peer Review Portal or through other providers working on external referencing with UOW.

(19) The project will typically be reciprocal whereby the UOW Subject Coordinator will have their subject’s assessment peer reviewed and will provide a peer review for the partner institution. 

(20) Projects can be with one or more providers, however a project should not involve more than two other partner institutions.

(21) The matching process typically involves the sharing of subject outlines and course structures to confirm the suitability of the match and decide on the assessment task to be externally referenced. Where a close match is not possible, projects may alternatively involve the external referencing of subjects in the same discipline.

(22) An indicative time for a complete peer review of assessment project is typically 2 - 4 weeks once the project has been confirmed and participant agreements exchanged.

Project Administration and Review Methodology

(23) The external peer review of assessment projects and schedule will be coordinated, and records maintained by the Academic Quality and Standards Division.

(24) Projects will be administered via the National Peer Review Portal, or by manual administration (i.e. email and document sharing software) and record keeping.

(25) The University supports an external peer review of assessment methodology derived from the External Referencing of Standards (ERoS) Project 2016 and provides forms and templates for conducting reviews. The ERoS methodology review template is available in the National Peer Review Portal.

Section 6 - Peer Review of Assessment Standards - The Review Process

(26) In consultation with the Faculty, the Academic Quality and Standards Division will instigate projects as per the peer review of assessment schedule or at the request of the Faculty.

(27) The Academic Quality and Standards Division will coordinate the gathering, preparation and distribution of documents for the project.

(28) The Subject Coordinator is responsible for identifying the assessment task/s for review, and providing student work samples and supporting documentation (including subject outlines, grading scheme, assessment rubrics, course learning outcomes and, where relevant, national disciplinary standards, external reference points etc.)

(29) The Subject Coordinator may choose to include criteria or questions in addition to those set out in the standard report template. Any additions should take into consideration the potential increased workload for a reviewer involved in the project. 

(30) The Subject Coordinator (or equivalent) at the partner institution will conduct a review of student achievement standards using peer review of assessment templates provided by the Academic Quality and Standards Division.

(31) If the project is a reciprocal project, the UOW Subject Coordinator will conduct a review of student achievement standards using peer review of assessment templates provided by the Academic Quality and Standards Division.

(32) The Subject Coordinator/s judge the appropriateness of assessment practices and the intended outcomes as evidenced by the grade attained and provides feedback and any recommendations for improvements in an external peer review report.

(33) The Subject Coordinator/s will make themselves available to provide clarification and answer questions that may arise from the partner reviewer.

(34) The Academic Quality and Standards Division will provide the external peer review report with recommendations to the Subject Coordinator/s.

(35) The UOW Subject Coordinator shares report with the Academic Program Director and identifies any improvement actions for consideration alongside other performance, monitoring and feedback information in an addendum to the report.

(36) The final report will be submitted to the Academic Quality and Standards Division and maintained by the Faculty as evidence of interim monitoring of assessment standards and attainment of learning outcomes, to be included in subsequent course review an improvement activities.

Section 7 - Roles and Responsibilities

Faculty

(37) The Faculty is responsible for:

1. ensuring that all courses engage in external peer review of assessment, or meet the requirements of external referencing through other activities such as professional accreditation or other benchmarking of assessment standards and student achievement;
2. ensuring that all courses of study provide evidence of external peer review of assessment in the five yearly course review cycle, as required in the Course Monitoring and Review Procedures, subject and course evaluation criteria; and
3. notifying the Academic Quality and Standards Division of all external referencing projects undertaken in the faculty to ensure appropriate institutional records are maintained.

Academic Program Director

(38) The Academic Program Director (or similar named course leadership role) is responsible for:

1. ensuring that subjects which assure the course learning outcomes within their course (major or stream as relevant), engage in external peer review of assessment. In collaboration with discipline teams, communicating with providers to identify relevant courses and discipline staff with which to partner;
2. assisting the Subject Coordinator as required, in confirming matches with review partners; and
3. reading the final review reports and, in collaboration with the Subject Coordinator, responding to the report recommendations and identifying and implementing modifications and changes as appropriate.

Subject Coordinator

(39) The Subject Coordinator is responsible for:

1. undertaking review preparation and conducting the review process as outlined in sections 5 and 6 of this Procedure.
2. with the Academic Program Director and the teaching team (where applicable), responding to review feedback and identifying and implementing assessment modifications and changes as appropriate.

Academic Quality and Standards Division

(40) The Academic Quality and Standards Division is responsible for:

1. monitoring, review, and improvement of the this Procedure, the development of templates and guides, and support for the review process;
2. monitoring, review, and improvement of the Course Monitoring and Review Procedures and the development of forms and guides, and support for the review process;
3. management of an enquiry register for providers approaching UOW for engagement in external peer review projects;
4. management of MOUs as required; and
5. management of an institutional register of completed peer review projects.

(41) Project management including:

1. maintaining the peer review of assessment schedule with reference to the course review schedule;
2. accessing the National Peer Review Portal;
3. de-identifying student work samples; and
4. the exchange of supporting documentation (subject outlines, rubrics, course learning outcomes, national disciplinary standards, external reference points etc.).

(42) Reporting including reporting on use and effectiveness of external peer review of assessment in course reviews with reference to:

1. course quality issues commonly arising; and
2. recommended improvements to the external peer review of assessment process and the course review processes.

Learning, Teaching and Curriculum

(43) Learning, Teaching and Curriculum is responsible for providing guidance when sought by academic staff undertaking external peer review of assessment. Advice can include implementing improvements to assessment methods, grading and the constructive alignment of assessment design to learning outcomes.

Section 8 - References and Resources

(44) Bedford, Simon; Czech, Peter; Sefcik, Lesley; Smith, Judith; and Yorke, John, (2016), External Referencing of Standards (ERoS) - An example of a collaborative end-to-end peer review process for external referencing, Curtin University, Queensland University of Technology, University of Wollongong and RMIT University, 2016, 61p. External Referencing of Standards (ERoS) - An Example of a Collaborative End-to-end Peer Review Process for External Referencing

(45) Peer Review Portal

Section 9 - Definitions

Section 10 - Appendix 1 - Guide to the Selection of Student Work Samples

(46) Student work selected for external referencing should be able to demonstrate particular course learning outcomes (CLOs), i.e., those that characterise the knowledge and capabilities students should have achieved by the completion of their course. (It is recognised that samples will not be able to cover the full range of possible outcomes.) Avoid selecting samples that might have intellectual property implications (e.g., commercial-in- confidence).

(47) Samples should be selected from defined grade ranges, based on the final mark achieved as described below. Student work must be de-identified prior to the review process, but otherwise the work is left intact, complete with any annotations made by the original assessor. (If assessor comments/marks are on a separate document, such as a rubric, this should be included alongside the student work).

Stratified Sampling

(48) To enable a focus on threshold standards, and to provide a consistent format for the comparison of student work across institutions that may use different grade band boundaries, samples for external referencing should represent a selection of assessed work to include the mark ranges as follows:

1. A minimal pass (selecting a sample of student work that achieved the minimum pass mark up to no more than 5% above this. If there is no student work that falls into this category, the work with the lowest passing mark should be submitted for review.)
2. A fail (selecting a sample of student work that did not meet the pass mark, but did not fail by more than 10% below the minimum pass mark. If there is no student work that falls into this category, then the work with the highest failing mark should be submitted.) If there are no failing students, then a second sample from the ‘minimal pass’ category above should be added.
3. A grade greater than a pass (selecting a sample of student work that achieved a mark that is higher than that which falls within the grade range associated with a ‘Pass’. [e.g., Credit, Distinction, High Distinction] If there are no students achieving a strong pass then do not submit work in this category.)

(49) The selection process is designed to produce at least two and normally three samples of work for review. Work should be selected from the full cohort until the three sample criteria are met.

Section 11 - Appendix 2 - Peer Review Materials Checklist

(50) Peer Review Materials Checklist

Section 12 - Appendix 3 - Participant Agreement

(51) External Peer Review of Assessment Standards

Section 13 - Appendix 4 - Peer Review of Assessment Report Template

(52) Peer Review of Assessment Report Template