Case Study
The University of Manchester Transitions to Hybrid Learning and Assessment with Cadmus Strengthening equity and inclusion, and assuring academic integrity in an online environment
The University of Manchester partnered with Cadmus to transition 65 academic units to hybrid assessment, improving equity, academic integrity, and student success.
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Highlights
83%
of students accessed feedback
96%
of students utilised assessment resources
15.62%
Average student Turnitin similarity score
The University of Manchester’s Assessment Challenge
Cadmus partnered with the University of Manchester (UoM) at the start of COVID-19 to support the institution's transition to a hybrid learning and assessment strategy, which focused on assessment reform to decrease academic malpractice, increase accessibility and enhance student success.
Through the University of Manchester’s transition to a hybrid strategy, like institutions globally, they were seeking to:
- Maintain learning and assessment quality in an online environment, ensuring assessment tasks promoted learning, scaffolded students through the process, and assessed learning outcomes.
- Enhance opportunities for underrepresented and minority student groups who were disadvantaged by non-inclusive teaching and assessment, improving the degree awarding gap.
- Assure academic integrity in an online environment, without imposing on student privacy and the student experience - common limitations associated with proctoring software.
Through the successful assessment outcomes achieved in an initial Cadmus pilot, platform utilisation scaled from 4 academic units to 65 academic units in under 2 years at the University of Manchester.
”I highly recommend Cadmus; it has supported our accelerated transition to blended and online learning methods, ensuring the authenticity and integrity of online assessments. Students learn meaningfully in the assessment process because the Cadmus platform provides an educative and supportive workspace that drives successful outcomes. Importantly, Cadmus has supported the University of Manchester in our efforts to tackle differential attainment across our diverse student cohorts."
Cadmus Solution
Cadmus provided an end-to-end assessment solution for the University of Manchester, representing a time and cost-efficient way to deploy high-quality assessments in an online environment, drive student success amongst diverse cohorts, and assure academic integrity.
Workload and Cost Efficiencies
The Cadmus platform removed traditional workloads attributed to transitioning to a hybrid delivery model by supporting educators in every academic discipline with pre-built, scaffolded assessment templates developed in alignment with best practice assessment design. This enabled educators to set up and release assessments within minutes, while providing the university with confidence in the consistency and quality of assessments presented to students.
Greater Equity and Inclusion
At the core of the University of Manchester’s assessment reform strategy, was the need to drive equity and accessibility for underrepresented and minority groups. For UoM students of diverse backgrounds and locations, Cadmus fostered an equitable and accessible education experience through a guided assessment environment. Within the Cadmus platform, students were supported with scaffolded assessment checklists, in-app academic skills support, referencing guides, point-of-need academic integrity guidance and real-time educator feedback, enabling all students to clearly understand their assessment requirements, foster original thinking and develop authentic work.
Enhanced Academic Integrity
Through the university’s transition to online learning and assessment, assuring the authenticity of student submissions was of the highest priority. First-in-class, Cadmus takes a proactive approach to academic integrity, balancing education, prevention and detection. Within the Cadmus platform, UoM educators were supported with Academic Integrity Assurance Analytics, which monitor the process around student assessment construction, identifying if students have copied, pasted or transcribed work into Cadmus and if this work looks inauthentic- including through the use of AI-Language Models. This enabled educators to identify students at risk of malpractice and proactively support successful outcomes before the point of submission.
“Our assessment reform at the University of Manchester is focused on ensuring that our assessments are inclusive, relevant, and trustworthy. With the recent change in landscape with Artificial Intelligence (AI) language models such as ChatGPT, we have sought the assistance of Cadmus to help the university ensure that our students, colleagues, and regulators have confidence in our assessment processes. AI is here to stay, and we are keen to work with students to best support their learning and engage them in authentic assessment.”
Cadmus Approach
Cadmus partnered with the University of Manchester to transition 65 academic units online across various disciplines.
The following major phases of work were completed by the Cadmus Academic Team to drive cost and workload efficiencies for senior stakeholders and educators, ensuring an exceptional user experience and minimising opportunity for change fatigue.
Analysis of Academic Units
To commence, Cadmus conducted individual and group consultations with educators to understand the university’s strategic objectives, the associated challenges, and the best approach to drive successful outcomes in an online environment.
Assessment Redesign for an Online Environment
The Cadmus Academic Team redesigned and deployed all applicable assessments to align with UoM’s Assessment and Teaching and Learning Policies. Within the Cadmus Student Environment, the university’s academic skills support and academic integrity resources were integrated to ensure students had point-of-need access and support throughout the assessment process.
Transitioning of Exams Online
The Cadmus Academic Team redesigned the applicable UoM exams for an online environment, ensuring each assessment task met the standards articulated in the University of Manchester’s Examination Policy.
Educator Onboarding
The Cadmus Academic Team delivered comprehensive training to educators throughout each semester on improving assessment, teaching and learning quality within an online environment, and harnessing Cadmus Academic Integrity Analytics to support student success and assure authentic working.
Validation of Cadmus Platform Success
Cadmus reported on individual academic unit success at the end of each semester to senior and faculty stakeholders in alignment with the university’s strategic objectives. Through the measurable success achieved to date, Cadmus utilisation continues to increase at the university, growing from an initial 4 - 65 academic units.
University Research Partnership
The University of Manchester and Cadmus are both deeply committed to enhancing learning opportunities for underrepresented and minority student groups. Following the exceptional student outcomes achieved to date, a joint research project is currently underway to increase equity and accessibility in higher education.
The University of Manchester’s Outcomes
Across all university stakeholder groups, exceptional assessment results have been achieved in alignment with the identified strategic objectives, supporting the ongoing adoption and utilisation of the Cadmus platform.
Student Outcomes
Student outcomes reflect 6,831 student results from various academic disciplines between 2021 - 2023 to date.
Improved Student Experience
88.96% of students reported a positive assessment experience, increasing the University of Manchester’s student experience score by 17.61% as measured against the National Student Survey Results, 2021 (Pre-Cadmus).
Enhanced Student Success
96.31% of students received a passing grade, directly attributed to the educative and supportive environment within the Cadmus platform, which increases student learning and engagement throughout the assessment process.
Through Cadmus learner analytics, it was evidenced that on average, students completed their assessment over 6 unique working sessions, 96% of students utilised the academic resources available within Cadmus to support assessment progression, and 83% of students accessed real-time educator feedback prior to submitting their final assessment, which underpinned the student pass rate.
Improved Academic Integrity in an Online Environment
15.62% was the average student Turnitin similarity score, with Turnitin’s benchmark of below 20% indicating authentic work.
The educative and scaffolded environment within the Cadmus platform provided students with point-of-need academic integrity support, guiding students to paraphrase, quote or re-write work that appeared inauthentic. On average, each student received 3 academic integrity nudges per assessment to drive authentic work and proactively support students to success before the point of submission.
“I loved the layout and formatting of Cadmus, and it was so helpful having all the instructions separated out into a step-by-step checklist. This made the workload so much more manageable and I knew exactly what I had to do to complete it.”
Educator Outcomes
Successful Educator Experience
97% of educators reported a positive experience with Cadmus. Within the Cadmus platform, educators were supported with end-to-end assessment capabilities, including pre-built scaffolded assessment templates, real-time student progression and assessment analytics, class management, and streamlined marking functionality.
Further, the supportive and educative workspace for students within the Cadmus platform drove greater assessment clarity and authentic work, which significantly reduced educator workloads attributed to student assessment queries and academic malpractice investigations.
“In the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Manchester, we are using Cadmus to enhance the student experience of assessment and to support student learning through assessment. Feedback from students and staff using Cadmus has been very positive. Thousands of students used Cadmus during the last semester and we have seen a significant uptick in staff requesting access to the platform to support their teaching. The Cadmus team have been incredibly responsive to our queries and questions. They are supporting our ongoing work to design out academic malpractice, improve student understanding of the assessment criteria and help us gain insights into feedback. We are looking forward to working with them again this semester as we try to tackle some of the challenges in student assessment.”
University Outcomes
Assessment Workload and Time Savings
Through the University of Manchester’s transition to online learning and assessment, Cadmus’ end-to-end assessment capabilities underpinned workload and time savings associated with assessment administration, educator and administrator workloads, and student progress and success in assessment.
To date, UoM has run 94 assessments in Cadmus, resulting in 4,319.3 Hours Saved in Educator, Registrar and Academic Integrity Officer workloads.
These time savings are directly attributed to the following major phases of work completed by the Cadmus Academic Team and the in-app platform capabilities:
- End-to-end assessment re-design and setup for an online environment
- Seamless ability to monitor and support student progress in assessment through one clear in-app dashboard
- Reductions in student assessment queries through greater assessment clarity from the scaffolded environment within Cadmus
- Streamlined marking and submission moderating through efficient in-app functionality
- Reductions in academic integrity investigations attributed to the use of Cadmus Academic Integrity Assurance Analytics and the supportive student working environment
Category
Product
Student Success
