Leah Simpson, Assessment Specialist in the Office of Assessment, attended the eLearning Forum Asia 2012 conference in Beijing, China on April 23-26 where she was the special guest of BeeNet, a Blackboard subsidiary.  While at the conference, Simpson presented a keynote speech addressing the process the University of Kentucky uses to assess its UK Core program.  Unlike many other institutions, UK has chosen to assess the UK Core program-wide which means that thousands of student assignments are collected annually.  In order to expedite this process the University uses Bb Outcomes to collect, sample, and distribute student work to faculty evaluators. 

    Currently, UK is the only Bb Outcomes client that uses the system to assess at such a large scale.  Other users primarily assess at the degree program level.  For this reason, the University has gained notoriety for taking on such a large assessment project.  Simpson shared the benefits and hardships of assessing in this way, but concluded that this process could not be completed using a traditional pen and paper evaluation process.

    While in China, Simpson was able to take in a few tourist attractions.  Braving the rain, she set out to see the Great Wall of China, the Ming Tombs, Tiananmen Square, and the Olympic Village.