Foundations of Assessment Design
Assessment Types, Methods and Alignment
At JIBC, curriculum development plays a pivotal role in shaping the educational experience, and a key part of this responsibility is ensuring that assessment practices are thoughtfully integrated into course and program design. Assessment is not simply a mechanism for assigning grades—it is a structured process for measuring student achievement against clearly defined learning outcomes.
As such, developers must ensure that all assessment strategies are aligned with institutional policies and standards, which are designed to uphold academic integrity, fairness, and consistency across the Institute.
One of the primary responsibilities of curriculum developers is to ensure that course outlines clearly articulate the learning outcomes and the methods by which these outcomes will be evaluated. This includes specifying the types of assessments to be used—such as exams, presentations, projects, or field evaluations—their relative weightings, and any conditions related to attendance, retests, or participation. These elements must be transparent and accessible to students from the outset, enabling them to understand how their performance will be measured and what is expected of them. As a result, a course syllabus or lesson plans should further detail how the students will learn or practice the course content to enable or promote success in assessment of the learning outcomes.
Institutional policy also requires that grading schemes be selected and approved during the course development process. These schemes must be consistent with those established by JIBC’s academic governance bodies, such as School Curriculum Committees and Program Council, and must be applied uniformly across all offerings of a course. Curriculum developers must work closely with program managers and instructional staff to ensure that these grading schemes are not only appropriate for the course content but also compliant with institutional standards.
The Academic Affairs department provides templates and other guides to help you develop your courses and programs according to institutional expectations. Please refer to the Academic Affairs intranet site for more information, particularly when developing course outlines, to ensure that your design work is captured appropriately and articulated clearly for reviewers during the course development process.
In programs that include practical or field-based components, curriculum developers must also account for external evaluations by employers or supervisors. These assessments must be guided by standardized criteria to ensure fairness and consistency across different work sites. Even in these cases, the final responsibility for grading remains with the Institute, and developers must ensure that this accountability is clearly defined in the course documentation.
In summary, curriculum developers must approach assessment design with a deep understanding of institutional policy and a commitment to educational quality. By embedding robust, transparent, and policy-aligned assessment practices into course development, they help ensure that students receive a fair, meaningful, and supportive learning experience.