Graduate attribute assessment: Using online visual communication to engage staff and students

Graduate attribute development is an ‘emergent pedagogy’ struggling to emerge. In this paper the context of attribute integration in higher education is discussed followed by a broad approach to the notion of attributes from Shakespeare’s ‘five wits’ to recent industry reports on employability. Whilst mapping attributes against learning objectives is commonplace in documentation there appear to be few coherent approaches to attribute development in assessment criteria. Given that ‘assessment drives learning’, it is not surprising that Government and industry view universities’ attribute statements as ambit claims. This paper explores research from a large Australian Government grant that is using an online assessment system with visual interface (ReView) to engage business faculties with attribute-coded criteria for assessment. Preliminary findings of interest relate to students’ awareness of graduate attributes and their engagement with selfassessment, the value of visual communication for feedback, the development of attributes across subject boundaries and the subtleties of writing explicit assessment criteria.