About

Governance

Below is some information about the governance of the ORCA, in case you’re interested!

ORCA Steering Committee

The ORCA Steering Committee provides strategic guidance to support the development, growth, and long-term sustainability of ORCA, the Open Resource Centre for Assessments. The committee advises on the direction of ORCA so that it continues to meet institutional needs and advance innovative assessment practice. It’s current mandate and priorities are to:

  • Increase flexibility and accessibility for students (and faculty)
  • Spur innovations in assessments on campus
  • Reduce burden of running assessments for instructors
  • Lead the university through the AI disruption/revolution
  • Ensure UBC’s obligations to credentialing

Here are the current members of the ORCA Steering Committee

  • Dr. Simon Bates, Vice-Provost & Associate Vice-Provost Teaching & Learning (Chair) 
  • Dr. Firas Moosvi (Faculty of Science; ORCA Academic Director) 
  • Dr. Aaron Beedle (Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences) 
  • Dr. Gregory Werker (Sauder School of Business) 
  • Dr. Andrew Owen (Faculty of Arts)  
  • Dr. Jackie Stewart (Faculty of Science)  
  • Jennifer Burns (Chief Information Officer & AVP IT)  
  • Dr. Rella Ng (Registrar and AVP Enrolment Services) 
  • Dr. Elisa Baniassad (Faculty of Science; LTIC) 
  • Alicia Harder (Associate Director, Operational Strategy and Administration, LTIC) 
  • Robbie Morrison (Associate Registrar, Scheduling, Records & Systems Management, Enrolment Services) 

ORCA Operations Advisory Committee

The ORCA Operations Advisory Committee is currently being formed. More information about this will be shared soon

ORCA Admin Staff

  • ORCA Academic Director (Dr. Firas Moosvi)
  • ORCA Manager (Fiona Shaw)
  • ORCA Admin Coordinator (Maha Husain)
  • ORCA Admin Coordinator (Shahbano Syed)

Mission

Coming soon…

Priorities

Coming soon…

Locations

Information about the ORCA rooms, including available hardware and software can be found here.

Why do we need the ORCA?

Traditionally, instructors use a variety of assessment modes in their courses to provide students with feedback on their progress. Labs reports, assignments, worksheets, quizzes, midterms, tests, and exams are all just examples of assessments. Regardless of the assessment type, all of them aim to give students the opportunity to demonstrate their learning, and for the teaching team to provide feedback while the learning is happening. Even exams are opportunities for students to learn and grow their knowledge and understanding – the learning doesn’t ever have to stop! Adopting this philosophy is a bit of a paradigm shift and requires a rethink of how courses are structured. For example, if exams are just opportunities for students to get feedback and grow, shouldn’t students do more exams, more frequently? Yes, absolutely! In fact, that’s what education researchers have found is better for learning.

Schematic of the frequent testing model. The top half of the schematic shows two midterms, each worth 15% distributed over a 13-week term. The bottom half of the schematic shows an alternate model with 5 frequent tests distributed over the term, each worth 6%.

Unfortunately, wanting to do more tests does not actually solve the logistical nightmare that is actually administering more tests.
Traditional pen and paper exams are extremely inefficient – starting from writing the exam questions (ironically, usually on a computer), proofreading them, testing them with TAs, printing them, photocopying them, transporting them, handing them out, collecting them back from students, sorting them, grading them, recording grades in a spreadsheet, and finally returning them back to students. Administering pen and paper exams is truly exhausting, especially in large classes. This is not even considering the environmental impact of paper exams!

Digital assessments probably sound amazing given the challenges outlined above. However, digital assessments come with their own set of challenges. For example, equity considerations with expecting students to bring in their own laptops, booking rooms with enough wall plugs for charging, network stability, a host of academic integrity concerns, and coordinating times when hundreds of students are available to simultaneously write the exam.

Through the use of a reservation and test management software called PrairieTest, dedicated physical rooms with computers configured to only permit access to allowed materials, trained invigilators, and a growing community of faculty, staff, and students, we believe many of the challenges associated with digital assessments can be overcome.