CRADLE Symposia

Each year, CRADLE hosts a group of national and international experts to progress international research agendas in the field of higher education assessment and digital learning.


CRADLE 2023 Symposium

Re-orienting authentic assessment for an unknown future

The CRADLE 2023 Symposium was held on 13, 16-18 October 2023

CRADLE Symposium 2023 Delegates

Chaired by Professor Rola Ajjawi, the symposium seeked to trouble superficial and instrumental practices of authentic assessment, re-orienting it towards the increasingly uncertain future. We presented three exciting public events as pivotal highlights of the symposium program. These were a Keynote Presentation and two interactive Panel Sessions.

Read reviews of our public sessions here

You can read reviews of all three public events here on our blog. Three of CRADLE’s PhD students, Anastasiya Umarova, Lincoln James, and Chad Gladovic, have written about their experiences of the public sessions, providing their reflections and key takeaways from each session.

Keynote Presentation

Review by Anastasiya Umarova

Open Panel Session 1

Review by Lincoln James

Open Panel Session 2

Review by Chad Gladovic


Keynote Presentation

Friday 13 October

The Keynote Presentation was held on Friday 13 October at 11am by Professor Crina Damşa, Associate Professor at the Institutt for pedagogikk and Vice Dean, Innovation and Digitalisation at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Oslo. Crina discussed the complexity of the collaborative learning process and reflect on how assessment and authenticity fit in to learning during her presentation ‘Assessment ‘in-the-wild’? Understanding collaborative learning and the need for authentic assessment‘.

In this interactive session we invited the audience to make a range of contributions to this thought provoking topic. The keynote concluded with a reflection on conceptual and methodological challenges of researching collaborative learning processes and how this research can inform the understanding of collaborative learning authentically in its complexity.


Open Panel Session 1 – Monday 16 October

How can we strengthen relationships between authenticity, assessment, and future practice?

This discussion unpacked the challenges of strengthening relationships between authenticity, assessment, and future practice. Our panel addressed assessment that aligns with industry and work, assessment in the workplace, and staff development in assessment.


Open Panel Session 2 – Tuesday 17 October

What is the role of the digital in authenticity of assessment?

This discussion focused on the complexities of the relationship between the digital and authentic assessment. Digital technologies can be seen as a providing positive future-facing authenticity or negative interference with embodied real-life practices. But is this really the case? The digital operates at the individual, interpersonal, organisational, and social levels in complex and nuanced ways. Our panel considered what assessment and authenticity might mean in a digital world.



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