Creative Assessment Design on a Master of Science Degree in Professional Software Development

Volume 12, Issue 2 (February 2021), pp. 46–57

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@article{jocse-12-2-11,
  author={Cathryn Peoples},
  title={Creative Assessment Design on a Master of Science Degree in Professional Software Development},
  journal={The Journal of Computational Science Education},
  year=2021,
  month=feb,
  volume=12,
  issue=2,
  pages={46--57},
  doi={https://doi.org/10.22369/issn.2153-4136/12/2/11}
}

A Master of Science (MSc) conversion degree is one which retrains students in a new subject area within a fast-tracked period of time. This type of programme opens new opportunities to students beyond those gained through their originally-chosen degree. Students entering a conversion degree do so, in a number of cases, to improve career options, which might mean moving from an initially-chosen path to gain skills in a field that they now consider to be more attractive. With a core goal of improving future employability prospects, specific requirements are therefore placed on the learning outcomes achieved from the course content and delivery. In this paper, the learning outcomes are focused on the transferable skills intended to be gained as a result of the assessment design, disseminated to a cohort of students on a Master of Science (MSc) degree in Professional Software Development at Ulster University, United Kingdom. The coursework submissions are explored to demonstrate how module learning has been applied, in a creative way, to facilitate the assessment requirements.