6. Assessment competence
The TU Delft sees their lecturers as professionals in education after completing the University Teaching Qualification (UTQ). They are capable of independently running and continuously improving their course. Since assessment is an important part of education, this implies that lecturers are competent in designing the assessment of a course, and in developing, administering, scoring/feedbacking and grading assessments (see Quality requirement 9). This is in line with the human resource policy, which states that employees are trained for their tasks and that employees can develop themselves further within their position41,42. Besides lecturers, there are many more people involved in assessment. This chapter describes how the TU Delft assures that the assessment stakeholders are competent for their assessment related tasks, as stated in Quality requirement 9. Details can be found in Appendix D.1 per building block of assessment (Figure 1 and Figure 4).
6.1 Integration of assessment competence in HR guidelines
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TU Delft requires academic staff members (UFO profiles: teacher, assistant professor, associate professor, full professor) with a task in education and an appointment of more than 0.2 FTE to have or acquire a UTQ qualification within three years after employment at TU Delft33, or apply for UTQ exemption based on UTQ equivalency43. The applicable vacancies mention this. For employees in the academic career track (ACT), obtaining the UTQ is part of the assessment criteria for getting promoted to assistant professor 1 (UD1) and beyond33. Every employee of the TU Delft is entitled to two days per year for further development44,45, which enables them to follow assessment specific training opportunities. Following the collective labour agreement, junior lecturers (teacher 3 and teacher 4), lecturers, postdocs, and PhDs will be provided with time to complete their teaching qualification. For lecturers, this qualification is the UTQ. A granted UTQ exemption based on established UTQ equivalence is equivalent to the UTQ, but that does result in a UTQ certificate43.
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For associate and full professors, assessment (‘testing’) is explicitly mentioned in the TU Delft ‘guidance document on career paths with an emphasis on teaching’46 as an example). This document also mentions Didactic Leadership Courses as training opportunity for associate and full professors. Finally, ‘testing’ is a separate ‘result area’mmm in the UNLnnn function description for teachers, assistant professors, and associate professors47-49.
condition 19: TU Delft ensures that educational and assessment quality are explicitly mentioned in both the HR recruitment and professional development policy.
6.2 Standard offer assessment qualifications and trainings
The TU Delft offers the following assessment trainings for teaching staff, members of educational management teams, and members of the boards of examiners. Teaching and Learning Services (TLS) organise the trainings. The TLS training offer is integrated into the Learning Hub50 of HR.
| condition 20: | TU Delft ensures that the assessment training offer of Teaching and Learning Services (LS) is integrated in the HR training offer. |
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The content of UTQ module ASSESS is the heart of the assessment competence of the TU Delft and is in line with TU Delft assessment conditions and the nine requirements (see 1.2). Being one of the four mandatory modules of the University Teaching Qualification (UTQooo), it focusses on assessment. Its learning objectives form the core competences for employees who are either responsible for course assessment, for giving assessment advice, for giving assessment training to lecturers, or for assessment quality assurance. They are in line with the 4TU UTQ competences51. The TU Delft assessment manual16,ppp and the contained guidelines form the common knowledge base on assessment within the TU Delft.
The learning objectives of UTQ ASSESS52 are:
- Design an assessment plan for a course.
- Analyse assessment results to improve education in a course:
- Investigate learning objective achievement.
- Identify areas for improvement in assessment items, grade calculations, teaching, and course material.
- Develop different types of assessments, including blueprints, instructions, grading guides and the grade calculation.
- Evaluate the quality of assessments, based on the quality requirements for assessment.
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In addition to the handbook for boards of examiners53, the policy department of ESA, Legal Affairs, and TLS offers (new) members of boards of examiners (BoEx) an introductory course that focusses both on their roles and responsibilities, as well as refreshes the principles of UTQ ASSESS and this assessment framework.
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Other assessors and supervisors without a teaching position and therefore without UTQ obligation (e.g. postdocs, researchers and lecturers with an appointment of <=0.2 FTE) can follow the course “Supervision and Assessment Principles”57 (SAP) that focuses on supervising and assessing individual projects.
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TLS offers trainings for student assistants (SAs)58 in the faculties on how to supervise, provide feedback and assess students (i.e. basic didactics) in e.g. computer labs. In addition, a self-paced training is available for SAs who assist the examiner in developing and monitoring the technical side of digital exams, and prepares them for advising lecturers on tool use. Faculties can require their student assistants (SAs) to follow these trainings.
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TLS offers training for the TU Delft student council and for faculty student councils on education and assessment, to make them familiar with constructive alignment, the TU Delft assessment values, the assessment requirements, and organisation. The trainings help them to influence assessment policy in a meaningful way.
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Next to the beforementioned UTQ module ASSESS, TLS offers various training opportunities to assessment stakeholders. Examples of topics of Continuing Professional Development59 (CPD) courses, workshops, short courses, videos are:
- Using test result analysis to improve courses
- Creating (and improving) rubrics60
- Optimal use of assessment tools
- Fraud prevention and detection in remote assessment
condition 21: TU Delft offers training opportunities on assessment to staff.
6.3 Requirements by boards of examiners on competence
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condition 22: The boards of examiners ensure that all appointed examiners have a UTQ qualification and that other assessors work under the responsibility of an examiner. Boards of examiners draw up qualification requirements for the appointment of examiners in the Rules and Guidelines22 (see 3.12), which includes at least a UTQ. Other types of assessors who are not appointed as examiner can be involved in the assessment of courses/education under supervision of the responsible examiner.
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condition 23: The boards of examiners determine prerequisites on who may carry out key assessment tasks. In addition to the UTQ requirement for examiners, boards of examiners can determine prerequisites for specific important assessment tasks that examiners, assessors, or other teaching staff conduct to secure their competence (Quality requirement 9). These tasks include assessing graduation work, assessing projects, reviewing student work as student assistants, drawing up exam questions as PhD students, etc.
Examples of additional requirements for specific tasks are:
- UTQ status: to have completed the UTQ or to be working on the UTQ
- Other qualifications / training: to have completed or attended specific task oriented training, e.g. for scientific staff without UTQ obligation (PhD students, researchers and parttime lecturers with an appointment of 0.2 FTE or less)
- Position: to be part of the academic teaching staff (or even hold a specific position like teacher 2) of a specific programme or track
- Affiliation: to be or not to be part of the department in which a student project takes place
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condition 24: The boards of examiners have regulations on the composition of the graduation committee to ensure assessment quality of graduation projects. Boards of examiners can assure the quality of the assessment of graduation projects by setting requirements on the size and requirements for composition and membership of the graduation committees (see above for examplesrrr).
6.4 Administration of assessment qualifications
The HR system keeps track of at least the TU-wide defined relevant assessment qualifications of staff. This is a condition to facilitate (digital) processes that ensure that employees with assessment tasks are qualified for their task (Quality requirement 9). The board of examiners can request access to the list of employees with a certain assessment qualification in order to appoint examiners, graduation committee members or other assessment related functions.
| condition 25: | TU Delft ensures that the HR system keeps track of at least the relevant assessment qualification of staff, listed in 6.5. |
6.5 Overview of required and desired assessment qualifications & training
Table 4 summarises the required and desired qualifications for the main assessment related functions. The ‘required qualification’ column indicates what qualifications the TU Delft requires per function or task. In the faculty assessment policy, the faculty decides which of these ‘desired’ qualifications will be made ‘required’ within the faculty. The rightmost column indicates who within the faculty is accountable for stimulating their employees to obtain the qualification, or to decide to make a specific qualification mandatory.
Table 4. Main required and desired assessment qualifications at TU Delft.
Overview of main required and desired qualifications (middle and right column) per main assessment function or task (left column).
Function/task | Required qualification | Desired qualification | Accountable for desired/required decision & stimulation |
Examiners | UTQ |
| BoEx |
Lecturers | UTQ (within 3 years33) |
| Director of education |
Track coordinators, learning line coordinators, etc. | UTQ | Senior Examination Qualification (SEQ) | Director of education, head of department |
Programme director | UTQ | Leergang Onderwijskundig Leiderschap (LOL) | Dean & director of education |
Director of education | UTQ | Leergang Onderwijskundig Leiderschap (LOL) | Dean |
Educational advisors / assessment advisors |
| Basic: BSc or MSc in Education or UTQ Advanced: Assessment Expert qualification / Senior Examination Qualification | Head of ESA |
Student assistants |
| Student Assistant Training | Director of education, BoEx |
Assessors/supervisors of projects |
| SAP / GS courses / UTQ | BoEx |
Members of the board of examiners | UTQ | Board of examiners training (within 1 year53) | Dean |
6.6 Offering information and support
This section describes what the TU Delft offers for assessment stakeholders in terms of assessment information during onboarding, the accessibility of assessment information in general, support and advice by assessment experts, and peer support within the assessment supporters’ community (Focus on Assessment).
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The departments ensure that they provide their new employees with assessment tasks with at least the following documents/information:
- Education related regulations
- Graduation manual
- University Teaching Qualification (in case the employee is not qualified yet)
- Overview of educational procedures and processes like exams, graduation, and (re)designing courses (including advise and approval procedures of BoS, BoEx and FSC).
- Overview of available training, events, and support on assessment
- Overview of teaching and assessment related tools (e.g. Osiris, the LMS (Brightspace) and Coursebase).
- Overview of educational management and support organisation in the faculty and within the TU Delft
condition 26: TU Delft and the faculties ensure that new employees receive the required information and training in order to carry out their assessment tasks. -
condition 27: TU Delft and the faculties make relevant assessment information available for stakeholders. Teaching and Learning Services provides information on teaching and related tooling via https://teaching-support.tudelft.nl/62. Table 5 gives an overview of what assessment information is currently published where.
Table 5. Assessment information matrix.
Overview of where information and regulations (rows) on assessment topics (columns) are published. O = internet, X = login required (SSO) -
On-the-job advice and support by assessment advisors is another way of increasing assessment competence of lecturers. Both in the faculties as well as in TLS, support staff and assessment experts are available for support and advice on assessment.
condition 28: Assessment experts within TLS and the faculties offer support and advice on assessment.
mmm A ‘result area’ is an HR term. It could be described as a criterion on which employees are assessed in the R&D (result & development) cycle.
nnn UNL: Universities of The Netherlands, Universiteiten van Nederland (UNL), previously known as VSNU (Vereniging van Samenwerkende Nederlandse Universiteiten).
ooo The four technical universities (4TU) defined the UTQ competences. They can be found in the 4TU UTQ regulations51.
ppp The TU Delft assessment manual was previously known as the UTQ ASSESS reader until December 2022. More information on projects and larger assignments, more extensive guidelines on assessment, rubrics and assessing group work can be found in the book “How to assess students through assignments”17.
qqq This course was formerly called ‘Didactic Leadership Course’ in the ‘guidance document on career paths with emphasis on teaching in the position of Associate Professor and Full Professors’46
rrr For a concrete example, see the Rules & Guidelines of the Board of Examiners of CEG.