Internal Pre-Moderation Reports

It is essential that all assessments are moderated before you teach them. This is a requirement of MIT’s quality assurance process. Pre-moderation ensures that the assessments are fair, consistent and accurate.

Pre-moderation also protects you from allegations of unfairness and protects MIT’s reputation as a Category 1 provider.

When to Pre-Moderate

MIT has a moderation cycle as shown below. Pre-moderate after planning, designing and developing as assessment. It must be done before you deliver the assessment to your students.

How to access and download our MIT Internal Pre-Moderation Report template

1. Go to MITNet. Browse to Academic Centre – Teaching and Assessment – Assessment – Moderation

2. Download the Pre-Moderation Report Template from under Documents at the bottom of the page.

Before You Start

There are several items, as the moderator, that you need from the assessment writer. For Internal Pre-Moderation the following materials are required:

• The assessment itself, an uncompleted assessment
• Instructions to students (this may be in the same document as the assessment itself)
• Assessment matrix
• Assessment model answer and/or judgement statement
• Course descriptor/assessment standard (if a unit standard assessment)
• Notes to the moderator (if applicable)
• Any other relevant information

Make sure you get these items from the assessment writer so that you can moderate the assessment. The assessment writer will let you know which of the above you need to receive.

The assessment writer will have completed the whole of section 1. Assessment details.

3. If the assessment writer hasn’t completed this whole section, have them fill it in before you continue.

4. Fill in your name and date of moderation in the template.

Complete the Pre-Moderation Template

The MIT internal pre-moderation report template is simple to complete.

5. The aim is for all moderation outcomes to be ticked MET. However, only tick MET when the item meets requirements.
6. As the moderator it is up to you to ensure that the assessment is fair, valid, consistent and at the appropriate level.

• Review the assessment. Make sure that the assessment writer has used the approved course name and course code. If this has been done, tick MET next to Uses the approved course name and course code. You can check these from the course descriptor in the PAD.
• Review the assessment for the other items in the list:
• Includes a title, reference, assessment type and version
• Includes level, credit value (i.e., total marks), and weighting information
• Language used and instructions are clear, appropriate and unambiguous
• Assessment conditions and information around further assessment opportunities are clearly communicated to students
• Learning outcomes and/or unit/achievement standard elements assessed are clearly identified and are aligned with the approved course prescription. [Also, see Assessment Matrix].
• Provides students with opportunities to meet assessment requirements at the correct level
• Assessment criteria relate clearly to the assessment instructions
• Opportunities for integration of assessment of learning outcomes are maximised
• Refers to resource materials that are available to the student
• Allocation of marks is clear
• Plenty of space is provided for feedback to students

7. Tick MET, NOT MET, PARTLY MET or NA for each.
8. If you tick NOT MET or PARTLY MET you will need to put a comment in the box to explain details of the issue:

9. Review the Assessment schedule including judgement statements and complete the pre-moderate template in the same way as above:

• Clearly identifies the assessment task it is for
• Has statements that specify the evidence required to meet learning outcomes/standard
• Contains relevant judgement statements which describe performance levels (quality/quantity)
• Learning outcome verb(s) and the required level is/are aligned with the verb(s) used in the assessment tool. 
• If applicable, changes have been made (i.e., re-writes or edits) to meet the learning outcome(s) and/or Moderator’s feedback.

10. Answer YES or No to Does the assessment validly address the Learning Outcomes of the course, and correctly reflect the overall assessment design shown in the Assessment Matrix?
11. Answer YES or No to Overall, this assessment is fair and appropriate for the required level.
12. If you have any general comments about the assessment that do fit into the boxes above, or general positive comments, write them in the General comments box
13. Send your feedback back to the assessment writer. If you need to have a conversation with them about some of your findings do so.
14. If you need to record any of the conversation between you and the assessment writer use the General comments box.
15. If you need to change any of your ticks from e.g. NOT MET or PARTLY MET to MET, after conversation with the assessment writer, or after they’ve made changes, record this in the General comments box.
16. When both you and the assessment writer are happy that the assessment passes pre-moderation, both of you sign the signatures boxes.

17. Send the completed Pre-Moderation template to your Academic Lead Quality so that it can be presented at Programme Committee.