Introduction

This book is set in the context of current challenges in higher education: massification, student diversity, an escalating demand for personalized learning driven by developments in information technology and pressure on marking turnaround times, to name but a few. The advent of student fees is promoting a consumer culture in which students are becoming ‘customers’ with an increasingly powerful voice in shaping curricula to their own requirements. Likewise employers are exerting pressure on higher education institutions to turn out students with workplace skills. In this context, assessment is key; student retention, completion and employability are hard outcomes linked to assessment targets in a target-driven world and used as indicators of success.