The International e-Assessment Conference returns 8-10 June at the Leonardo Royal London St Paul’s. This year’s theme is The Trust Imperative: Innovating with Integrity. It is a timely one. When AI can write the essay, accessibility compliance does not guarantee usability, and metrics can obscure as much as they reveal, trust is not a given. It has to be designed in. Here are six sessions we think are worth blocking out in your schedule:
From Artefact to Dialogue: Redesigning Assessment for an AI-Enhanced World 8 June, 10:45 GMT, Main Stage (AI Symposium)
Jeremy Carter argues that generative AI has changed what a student artefact actually means, and that assessment design has to respond. His session explores moving from polished outputs to dialogue-based evaluation, where candidates explain their reasoning, defend their interpretations and demonstrate genuine understanding. The practical question he poses is one the whole sector needs to answer: in an AI-shaped workforce, what are we actually assessing? We explored a similar question in If AI Can Pass Your Assessment, Your Assessment Is Broken.
The WHAT, not the HOW, of Assessing and Selecting People at Work 9 June, 10:20 GMT, Main Stage
Professor Adrian Furnham draws on a century of research into predictors of work success to ask the question that too many assessment programmes skip: what should you measure, and why? If your organisation is reviewing its talent assessment approach, this keynote sets the conceptual foundation. For a related take on evidencing what assessments actually measure, see Can You Evidence That?
Accessibility Special Interest Group Panel: The Future of Assessments: Why Integrity will be Pivotal to Fairness and Inclusion 9 June, 11:30 GMT, Main Stage
This panel brings together practitioners from across the accessibility field to examine how integrity and inclusion reinforce each other in assessment design. The discussion covers reducing cognitive load, levelling the playing field for diverse learners, and building assessments that are both robust and credible. Robbie Burns, Head of Business Consulting at Cirrus Assessment, joins the panel. Connect with Robbie on LinkedIn ahead of the conference.
Accessibility Beyond Compliance: Designing Digital Assessments That Blind and Low-Vision Students Can Actually Use 9 June, 12:50 GMT, Syndicate Stage 3
Trisha Klein makes a sharp and necessary distinction between technical WCAG compliance and real-world usability. She presents a practical framework for designing assessments that blind and low-vision students can navigate independently, without the platform itself becoming an obstacle to demonstrating what they know. Our guide on how to make your assessments inclusive covers some of the same ground from a delivery perspective.
What Digital Assessment Data Can Tell Us: Turning Student Interactions into Actionable Insights 9 June, 14:20 GMT, Syndicate Stage 1
The Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) shares how its move to digital assessment has unlocked four areas of insight: tool usage analytics, time-on-item analysis, process-enabled field testing and behaviour-based test security. For any assessment team exploring what their platform data can do beyond reporting, this session offers concrete examples.
Marked by Trust, Not Just Metrics 10 June, 09:45 GMT, Main Stage
Peju Abuchi opens day two with a challenge to the assessment sector’s reliance on metrics. She examines what data captures, what it misses and why trust belongs at the centre of assessment design. A strong counterweight to the more data-heavy sessions in the programme. Robbie Burns covered similar ground in The Quiet Risk in Assessment Systems.
If you are attending and want to talk through what any of this means for your assessment programme, Robbie Burns is happy to connect.
