The creative graduate

Cultivating and assessing creativity with eportfolios

Abstract

Changing demands for graduate capabilities lead to changing directions for undergraduate assessment. 'Creativity' is a widely promoted graduate capability that relates to many others, such as independent learning and innovative problem-solving. Assessment practices need to become more focused on the evaluation of generic capabilities, additional to assessment of discipline- specific knowledge. This has implications for the content, design and modes of assessment. Assessment as learning promotes an approach in which the learning activity and assessment task are one and the same, and authentic assessment design incorporating group work, problem-based, online and portfolio assessment enable the development of generic capabilities to be embedded in the discipline. The paper explores creativity as a graduate capability, the creative potential of digital media, and how changing directions in assessment practice could support the assessment of creativity, with a focus on using eportfolios in assessment.