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An increasingly regulated higher education sector is renewing its attention to those activities referred to as "moderation" in its efforts to ensure that judgements of student achievement are based on appropriate standards. Moderation practices conducted throughout the assessment process can result in purposes identified as equity, justification, accountability and community building. This paper draws on the limited studies of moderation and wider relevant research on judgement, standards and professional learning to test commonly used moderation practices against these identified purposes. The paper concludes with recommendations for maximising the potential of moderation practices to establish and maintain achievement standards.

Graduate attributes have received considerable attention in recent years as universities seek to renew and articulate their purposes. Though many claims are made with respect to the implementation of graduate attributes, there is growing acceptance of the proposition that the strongest evidence of their achievement is their explicit embedding in assessment. While university policies espouse the assessment of graduate attributes, studies have suggested that the effectiveness of this undertaking is often limited by the influence of a range of diverse but interrelated factors. This paper discusses these influential factors and argues that the assessment of graduate attributes is a complex issue that is unlikely to be resolved unless these factors are addressed at a systemic level. (Contains 1 figure and 1 note.)

The assessment-related activities of academic development units (ADU) are driven not only by institutional initiatives and the pursuit of particular research interests but also by less predictable factors including the emerging needs of faculty members and external funding opportunities. When not located within a strong classification framework, institutional initiatives and the activities of ADUs can be experienced as fragmented and episodic events, a situation that denies participants and other stakeholders a sense of striving towards and achieving substantial goals. This paper proposes two classification frameworks - one for the organisation of the types of initiatives that universities commonly undertake in encouraging enhanced assessment practice and another for the functions of the ADU. Application of the two organisational frameworks offers a systematic approach to the development of institutional assessment plans and informs the ways in which the resources of the academic development unit can be deployed most strategically in their operationalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]