Higher Education Support Amendment Bill 2023
The Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill 2023 requires universities establish a ‘Support for Students Policy’ and to report their compliance to the Minister of Education. The amended legislation requires us to have “processes for identifying students at risk of not successfully completing their units of study and supports available to students to successfully complete their studies.”
Consequences for 1000-level and 2000-level units of study
To continue compliance in 2025, the University of Sydney’s policies state that:
All 1000 and 2000 level unit of study subjects must include an assessment task identified as ‘early feedback tasks’ in the unit outline. This assessment:
(a) provides students with early feedback on whether they are ready for academic success in the unit;
(b) may have low weight or no weight in the assessment framework for the unit; and
(c) is used for academic staff to communicate with students about their progress, and available support services.
The early assessment should be timed such that feedback can be provided, communicated, and acted on before the census date for the unit. The University has a goal to extend the Early Feedback Task to all undergraduate and postgraduate units by 2027, ensuring students receive actionable feedback and targeted support before census date.
The ‘early feedback task’
Does providing early feedback work?
There is considerable evidence that early assessment and feedback increases student engagement and belonging, helps them adjust their study strategies and improve their performance.
Just as importantly, early assessment enables educators to intervene and provide targeted support. Early, low stakes assessment and feedback is particularly important for commencing and equity students as it fosters engagement and understanding of their capability and the expectations and standards of their educators.
Why census date and when does the early feedback task need to be marked by?
Early assessment provides an opportunity for feedback to educators and students on their understanding of the introductory content in the unit. Feedback given in advance of the census date allows students to access help and make an informed decision about their enrolment. The census date is when students make a financial and academic commitment to the unit of study and is thus a key decision point. Census dates for each session are available on the university’s public-facing website.
For units running in semester 1 2025, the early feedback task must be completed by students by the end of week 3, with marks and feedback provided to students by Monday of week 4. For units running in an intensive session, where the census date typically occurs around day 10 of teaching, marks and feedback must be provided by day 7.
What type of assessments should be used?
Typically, tasks that are suitable for early feedback involve multiple choice (MCQ) or other automatically marked quizzes including weekly pre or post-class quizzes. For students, MCQs aid in knowledge retention, recall of previously-forgotten information, and transfer of knowledge to unfamiliar problems. For educators, MCQs help address common misconceptions, feedback can be displayed automatically to students in Canvas, and MCQs can be automatically marked at scale before students are contacted.
In disciplines where writing tasks are preferred, text analysis and peer review writing activities, reading tasks and minute papers can be used, typically with a rubric so that marking can be completed quickly and feedback communicated to students before census date.
Recent examples of Early Feedback Tasks from across disciplines are available in Designing for authenticity: early feedback in music, and Early Feedback Tasks – Design ideas from Arts and Social Sciences.
Can existing or multiple assessments be used?
Many coordinators already use suitable tasks that can be adapted to provide early feedback. Others may wish to replace or build new tasks, perhaps with the use of Cogniti to draft questions. A Canvas assignment group labelled “early feedback task” will be added to Canvas sites for each 1000-level and 2000-level unit of study as the Canvas sites are made, and the task can be added to the assignment group. Using a single task in the assignment group makes tracking easier. This consistent approach makes it easier to support staff and students across every unit of study.
What weighting should the assessment(s) have?
The assessment(s) can have a zero or low weighting to support the Early Feedback Task as an open assessment for learning and as learning. Students will be completing tasks in all their 1000-level and 2000-level units and so a weighting above 10% is not recommended.
Special consideration and simple extensions
If a zero weighted assessment is used, then no special consideration will be available. For other assessments, the normal special consideration process will apply. It is recommended that assessment types from the Sydney Curriculum category “In-class, small and continuous assessment” (for S1) or Practice and application – open (such as an out-of-class quiz, for S2) are chosen to be the early feedback task(s), so that, among other reasons, special consideration can be processed quickly.
It is not recommended that the Sydney Curriculum category “written assignments” is used for the early feedback task, as automatic simple extensions apply to this category which may cause unintended delays to the pre-census marking and feedback process.
Communicating available support to students
Coordinators of 1000-level and 2000-level units of study will be communicating available support to students at two key points leading up to census date:
- By Week 1: Before teaching begins, students will receive a communication welcoming them to the unit, with details of support available and a link to the Student Portal.
- Week 4: Students who have not attempted or have not obtained a satisfactory result in the early feedback task will receive an email linking them to academic and support services.
Additional communications through the Student Portal and from the DVCE will be sent to students in Week 2 if they have not logged into Canvas, and to students who have enrolled late.
How will communications be sent?
The Student Engagement Relationship Systems (SRES) is a powerful communication tool, built at Sydney by and for educators. SRES is particularly useful for personalising learning support in large units. SRES can be used to send targeted and personalised emails (‘filters’) to students about the Early Feedback Task: a welcome message, a message to students who have not attempted their early feedback task and a different message to those who have not obtained a satisfactory result. The messages themselves are provided to coordinators and can be personalised to the context of the unit.
How is the early feedback task communicated to students?
Text is added to unit outlines in every unit of study, with information about the presence and purpose of the Early Feedback Task, linking students to the ‘Support for Students Policy’, support services and highlighting students’ responsibility to check their university email regularly.
How are coordinators supported?
There are comprehensive resources on the Early Feedback Task in the Teaching Resources Hub. For 2025, educational design support for designing and implementing new assessments will be coordinated by faculty teams. Workshops with more details are provided before semester and ahead of census date.
Tell me more!
- Explore the early feedback task resources in the Teaching Resources Hub
- Higher Education Support Amendment – intranet page on the legislation and the University of Sydney’s response.
- Supporting students through pre-census assessment and feedback – review of the literature of early feedback and examples of suitable assessments from across the disciplines.
- Marking and feedback of early feedback tasks (EFT) – advice on how to provide meaningful feedback and links to associated literature.
- Personalising learning support in large units using SRES – information on how to use SRES to personalise communications.
- Read the Coursework Policy and Assessment Procedures and the Support for Students Policy on the Policy Register.
