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This resource provides guidance on how to adapt assessment to better support learning. It also explores how to accommodate the required changes that might arise from the global use of generative AI.
- Some first steps
- Before you make changes
- Six changes you can make now: video guides to small-scale adaptations to current assessments, which can be integrated into current module descriptions
- Plan for larger changes: an Assessment Menu for a more substantial revision of your assessment methods
This resource focusses on the pedagogical impact of AI on our assessment practices. It is designed to promote an environment of trust and responsibility with students through enhanced assessment practice and the fostering of a strong sense of academic integrity.
The suggestions, both in the short and longer term, are designed to enable students to understand – and work effectively with – the capabilities, limitations and ethical implications of using AI in assessment.
Try out a generative AI tool for yourself. UCL staff and students can now access Microsoft Copilot. Microsoft Copilot is a more secure tool than the consumer-oriented generative AI services, provided you log in with your UCL credentials. If you want to test exam questions (current or otherwise), this is the only safe tool to use.
Consider your current assessments critically. Does the current design really measure what you want it to measure? How else might you ascertain students’ learning?
If needed, consider amending your exam questions or written assessment tasks to make them more difficult for an AI tool to answer (see below).
Make clear to your students what is acceptable use of AI in the context of your assignments, and what is not. Tell your students that they must not try to pass off work created by such tools as their own as this would constitute academic misconduct. Point them to UCL’s guidance on academic integrity and to the Academic Manual (section 9.2.1 g, h and m). Read our guidance for staff on using AI tools in assessment.
Contact your Faculty Learning Technology Lead or your Arena Faculty contact if you would like further advice.
Changes you can make now
You can use this series of six videos to guide changes to policy and practice at programme or module level – they have been selected to align with UCL’s Assessment Change Timeline.
1. Discuss Academic Integrity and AI with your students
Watch the video on MediaCentral
- Additional resources
For students
For staff
2. Feedback and formative assessment
Formative assessments need to be part of an integrated assessment plan where they are linked to success in the summative assessment and where there is a clear rationale for student engagement. These IDEAS cards provide some excellent ways to engage students in formative activities.
Watch the video on MediaCentral
3. Revise exam questions
Watch the video on MediaCentral
4. Revise essay questions
Watch the video on MediaCentral
5. Convert generic questions to scenario-based questions
Watch the video on MediaCentral
6. Upgrade your Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs)
This video includes examples of how ChatGPT3.5 deals with a range of MCQ questions.
- Detailed timings
- Overview of types of MCQs and performance with ChatGPT (0 mins)
- ChatGPT and maths questions (3 mins, 40 seconds)
- Examples of ChatGPT responses to a range of MCQ type questions (4.36 mins)
- Summary of strategies for upgrading your MCQs (10 mins)
Watch the video on MediaCentral
Plan for larger changes to assessment
Download the Assessment Menu [pptx]
The Assessment Menu provides you with different options to consider when making changes to your assessment. They are aligned to the Assessment Framework for taught programmes.
The menu includes 40 different cards. Each card illustrates an idea for an assessment that either engages students directly with AI or for which AI find it difficult to generate a response. The suggestions here are starters for discussion and application within your discipline.
Please note:
- This is an evolving resource as things are developing at pace.
- This resource was developed before UCL staff and students could access Microsoft CoPilot, a more secure generative AI tool.
- Issues of access, equity and transparency with students need to be considered if using AI is an integral part of an assessment task. We need to be attuned to inclusive practice and provide options where appropriate.
- Learning outcomes and associated criteria will likely need review to reflect capabilities that graduates will need in an AI-enabled world. For this reason you may find entries such ‘emotional intelligence’ or ’contextual intelligence’ that do not directly map onto Bloom’s taxonomy as we know it.
The Assessment Menu is licenced under a Creative Commons Share Alike 4.0 License.
The Jisc National Centre for AI have created an interactive PowerPoint version of the slides that can be downloaded.
- Additional resources
Content for the Assessment Menu is drawn from range of sources and is largely based on Lydia Arnold’s Top Trumps resource.
You can also get ideas from the Good Practice in Assessment guide written by expert academics in the IOE, UCL’s Faculty for Education and Society. This book includes a resource bank with models, links and ideas that are ready to use and based on evidence.