July 2007 Volume 10 Number 3 - Educational Technology & Society

online graduate school of all places, it is appropriate that a lot more energy can now be devoted to what students can
accomplish in terms of real-world problem-solving. In an age when information is literally (and metaphorically) at
our finger tips, time is better spent making sense of this information rather than trying to memorise it. Thus, many of
the descriptive learning objectives have been re-cast prescriptive learning objectives, incorporating higher level
cognitive tasks (Bloom 1956); e.g. “develop an IT plan for a large organisation”.
In summary, the authors of this paper believe that the introduction of authentic assessment in the form of OBOW
exams has been a positive step from a pedagogical standpoint particularly given the applied business disciplines in
the MBA program. Significantly, the OBOW learning design is not something exclusive to online education, and it is
clear that campus-based institutions could also implement a similar form of authentic assessment either as formative
assessment or, as U21Global has done, in the form of a summative assessment instrument. We would recommend
professors introduce one assignment as a formative piece of assessment as a pilot in order to develop a level of
comfort with authentic assessment. We do remain concerned about the high proportion of adjunct professors at
U21Global who experience difficulties in writing OBOW exam cases, clearly indicating that some form of training
or faculty development program is needed particularly to support those who are unfamiliar with authentic
assessment.
One of the early reservations when U21Global was deliberating over the introduction of authentic assessment was
that it would develop students who could solve problems but not be able to master the ‘basics’ pertaining to a
particular domain. So far, there is little evidence to suggest that this is the case at U21Global, particularly as
U21Global adopts a pluralist approach to its pedagogy through the use of other assessment instruments such as selfassessment
exercises, discussion board assignments and business case analyses. Hence, a broad mix of assessment
instruments may be the ideal.
The authors acknowledge that research into the efficacy of the OBOW instrument is still at a relatively formative
stage and have noted several avenues for further work. One of these, quite simply, is to gather additional data aimed
at answering more specific research questions related to the OBOW examination approach. For example, comparing
the feedback on OBOW examinations in qualitative versus quantitative subjects would throw further light on the
issue of the transferability of the model. Another interesting question would be to see if there is any correlation
between the feedback on OBOW examinations and examination results; i.e. are students more likely to give positive
feedback on OBOW examinations if they perform well? Another avenue for research, in conjunction with the first,
is to improve the richness of the data collected. To this end, a project is under way to collect qualitative data from
both student and faculty focus groups to enable research results to date to be better corroborated. Finally, there is the
complex issue of whether OBOW examinations do, in fact, contribute to real-world problem solving skills in the way
they have been purposely designed. For this, U21Global is in the process of creating survey instruments for its MBA
graduates aimed at establishing whether or not the skills amassed though taking OBOW examinations have proved
useful post-graduation.
References
Biggs, J. (1999). Teaching for Quality Learning at University, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bloom, B. S. (1956). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals: Handbook I,
Cognitive Domain, London: Longman Group.
Cole, V. (2006). Hot Coffee is a lesson for MBA students, Retrieved June 1, 2007, from http://www.joystiq.com/
2006/03/01/hot-coffee-is-a-lesson-for-mba-students/.
Fitzsimmons, J., & Williams, J. B. (2005). Creating authentic learning environments: a strategy for student
engagement and deeper learning in introductory statistics. OLT-2005: Beyond Delivery Conference, Retrieved June
1, 2007, from https://olt.qut.edu.au/udf/OLT2005/index.cfm?fa=getFile&rNum=2420394.
Hanna, N. R. (2002). Effective use of a range of authentic assessments in a web assisted pharmacology course.
Educational Technology & Society, 5(3), 123-137.
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