Rules & Responsibility Driven SMART Students’ Evaluation: A Case Study of Streamlined Formative and Summative Assessments with Alignment of SLQF & QAC Standards

Abstract

The evaluation and grading methods in Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) vary dramatically with respect to unique and diverse aspects as adopted by HEIs. These aspects could include different students’ evaluations as adopted across different disciplines , particularly in Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities. This case-based research focuses on most common evaluation methods of Art Faculties in fifteen public HEIs, i.e. national universities, aiming to compare and contrast these criteria and thereby to identify deficiencies and errors inherent in the manual evaluation system. Additionally, the Faculty of Social Sciences and Languages at Sabaragamuwa University presents a complex evaluation and grading system within the hard sciences domain. The manual process of creating mark sheets can introduce human errors due to the need for individuals to concentrate on various combinations and criteria simultaneously. To address this issue, this research proposes the introduction of a digitalized mark sheet system. Such a system would minimize human errors, enhance accuracy and efficiency, and benefit students who may suffer from significant errors in the manual process. Moreover, it would facilitate statistical analysis for Faculty summary reports on grading and results. Furthermore, the digitalized system enables online result retrieval at different times and eliminates the need for multiple manual data entries in mark sheets.