Laying the Groundwork for a Programmatic Approach to Assessment at 亚洲色吧 University
Across Australia, 鈥減rogrammatic assessment鈥 is on everyone鈥檚 lips. It featured prominently in Professor Rowena Harper鈥檚 keynote at HERDSA 2025, underpins Edith Cowan University鈥檚 ambitious whole-of-institution Curriculum Transformation Program, and has made its way into the practical guides and policy pages of universities including , , and . While the terminology varies 鈥 from 鈥減rogrammatic assessment for learning鈥 to 鈥減rogram-level assessment design鈥 鈥 the underlying aspiration is the same: a coherent, program-wide approach that uses assessment to foster learning, track development over time, and make credible high-stakes decisions.
The term 鈥減rogrammatic assessment鈥 itself comes from the work of Cees van der Vleuten, Lambert Schuwirth and others, with principles captured in an Ottawa 2020 consensus statement. These ideas were developed in the context of medicine, where intensive longitudinal tracking, mentoring or coaching, multiple low-stakes assessments, and holistic progression decisions can be integrated into the fabric of the program. The principles translate well beyond health, but some elements are challenging to apply in other disciplines and curriculum structures. That鈥檚 why many universities are now broadening the concept, linking it to learning as well as assessment, and framing it in ways that translate across disciplinary boundaries.
For 亚洲色吧 University, the Assessment Framework Working Group has had two intertwined objectives: enable programmatic assessment, in its strict definition, within policy for medicine and other programs ready to adopt it; and support a program-aligned assessment strategy across the rest of the institution.
Drawing broadly on the principles of programmatic assessment, we consider program-aligned assessment strategy to include:
- Educational Alignment: assignments are designed to align with the objectives and outcomes of the program and are mapped to ensure scaffolding and coverage.
- Assessment Methods: a variety of assessment methods are used to facilitate and measure different aspects of learning.
- Program-level Coherence: including scaffolded development of assessment methods and assessment literacy, a consistent approach to submission, deadlines, feedback, and mentoring.
- Longitudinal Data: is collected over time to track a student鈥檚 development.
- Feedback: feedback is regular, planned, informed by longitudinal data, and focussed on guiding learning rather than just grading.
- Holistic Evaluation and Decision-Making: evaluation considers the overall pattern of a student's performance, aggregating multiple assessments. High-stakes decisions about progress or graduation are based on holistic consideration of performance rather than a single event or metric.
- Quality Assurance: the strategy documented, reviewed and refined according to evidence that includes program-level patterns of student performance.
Building the foundation
The 亚洲色吧 University Assessment Framework captures the purposes, roles, and enablers of assessment and has guided the development of our assessment policies and procedures.
The 3 purposes are now explicitly embedded in the new , which also supports non-graded assignments and courses (common in programmatic models), and enables program-level governance to reflect discipline norms. Importantly, the procedure explicitly calls out and recognises programmatic assessment strategies as documents that can justify exceptions and tailor approaches to key considerations like the distribution of assessment, certified assessment practices, and submission policies.
We鈥檝e also worked to establish a shared language. Assignments are described as purely formative, graded, or non-graded (pass/fail), reducing ambiguity and supporting the idea of a continuum of stakes. The concept of certified assessment (the term chosen to align with the purpose of 鈥渃ertifying learning achievements鈥) provides a consistent way to discuss assurance of learning while also allowing for the idea of tasks that are secure, but not certified.
TEQSA鈥檚 recent resource on is a helpful addition, especially in its 3 pathways to approach assessment assurance from a program perspective. As we develop our programmatic assessment strategies, I suggest it would be helpful to explicitly align with one of the 3 pathways.
A platform, not a quick fix
This framework is a promising mechanism for coherent, discipline-appropriate program-level design, but it鈥檚 not going to enable an overnight change. Program areas will need time to develop their own strategies and the principles that underpin them. Some key challenges remain, such as integrating program-aligned assessment with the ambition for modular, stackable curriculum. While holistic-decision making might seem at odds with modularity, it is actually a critical enabler. Stacked entry and exit points provide logical places for academic review, and holistic data collection and evaluation provide necessary assurance of the integrity of a modular academic program.
Our academic progress process is another potential enabler. It is a platform for high-stakes progression decisions, and future work could embed program-aligned, holistic evaluation that is informed by multiple points of observation over time.
There are aspects of assessment design that are pressing and challenging. These include strategies for certified assessment in an era of generative AI, and how to build a culture of rich feedback while avoiding over-assessment. While a program-aligned assessment strategy won鈥檛 solve these challenges on its own, it exposes them clearly and provides tools to address them: distributed, intentional assessment points; triangulated evidence of achievement; and a shared understanding of purpose.
By laying this groundwork now, 亚洲色吧 University is positioning itself to move beyond course-by-course assessment design towards an integrated, program-wide view. This will not only support disciplines ready for programmatic assessment but also help all programs design assessment that is intentional, coherent, and in service of student learning. In other words, it鈥檚 the start of a long-term cultural shift, one that will pay dividends in student success and educational quality for years to come.