Appendix 3: compendium authors
Published 16 May 2013
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1. Mike Cresswell
From October 2004 to retirement in April 2010, Mike was AQA’s Director General, responsible to its governing Council for all aspects of its operations as well as developing and implementing AQA’s business and educational strategy. He was also AQA’s Accountable Officer, personally responsible to the government qualifications regulator for the standards of all AQA’s qualifications.
Prior to that, Mike spent 30 years working as a researcher and technical specialist in the field of educational assessment. He was Head of Research for the Associated Examining Board and subsequently for AQA. Mike’s research has been particularly focussed on score aggregation and the reliability and validity of examination standards. He is the author of many books and journal articles on assessment and a frequent contributor to national policy committees and conferences at home and abroad.
Having retired from full time paid employment in April 2010, Mike is now pursuing a portfolio career. As a freelance consultant, he has significant contracts with clients in the UK and USA. He is a Board member of the TDA and holds an honorary position as a visiting professor at Bristol University Graduate School of Education.
2. Roger Murphy
Professor Roger Murphy is a Professor of Education at the University of Nottingham with specialist expertise in the field of educational assessment, evaluation and research. For over 35 years he has been active in this field, leading a large number of national and international research projects. His interests span all phases of education and lifelong learning, and he has conducted research in primary and secondary education, as well as further and higher education and work-based learning.
Professor Murphy has written widely about the limitations of educational assessments, and has a particular interest in improving both assessment practices and the use made of assessment results. As well as his post in Nottingham, he is also on the Board of Pearson Education Ltd, and is an advisor on assessment to the General Dental Council and a range of other national and international organisations.
3. Andrew Watts
Andrew began his career as a teacher of English in in both England and Singapore. He then worked for five and a half years in the Curriculum Planning Division of the Ministry of Education in Singapore, focusing on curriculum development in English teaching and in-service teacher development.
In 1990 he returned to England and worked with Cambridge Assessment from the summer of 1992. For most of that time he looked after teams that were developing Key Stage 3 national tests in English, maths and science in England, Northern Ireland and Wales.
As Director of the Cambridge Assessment Network from 2004 to January 2009, he led the setting up of the Network, whose purpose is to promote online and face-to-face professional development opportunities for those who work in educational assessment.
Andrew now works freelance on a variety of education projects. He contributes regularly to assessment seminars, workshops, training courses and conferences both in the UK and internationally.
4. John Winkley
John is an experienced leader of projects in education. His work includes:
Evaluation and Performance Management: He is currently leading quantitative evaluation work for Functional Skills, GCSEs and A levels, and is the nominated educational consultant for the Driving Standards Agency’s Theory Testing Programme.
Assessment: John has managed a wide range of formative and external summative assessments including developing and delivering high stakes assessments for Government customers such as TDA, LLUK, QCDA, DFE, BIS and for a number of UK awarding organisations.
Technology: Prior to joining AlphaPlus, John had worked for many years as an e-learning and e-assessment business manager with a track record of business growth in new media learning technologies. He developed innovative systems for education and assessment, working with a range of public and private sector clients through the three companies he has helped to build: BTL Group Ltd, The Virtual College plc, 3Square Solutions Ltd. He managed consulting and development projects in e-learning, e-assessment and e-portfolios. As an example, he recently completed a 30 month assignment as expert consultant to the JISC e-learning programme. His work has involved developing and deploying innovative solutions for e-assessment and e-learning in schools, colleges and workplace learning.
John is a qualified engineer with a BSC and MEng in Electrical Engineering. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors and a board member of the e-Assessment Association. He is Chair of Governors at Beckfoot school (a large secondary school in Bingley, West Yorkshire) and a governor of Hazelbeck School, a secondary specialist school located on the same site.
5. Tom Mitchell
Tom has worked in education and educational technology for the last 17 years. Starting as a University Lecturer and research team leader at Brunel University, Tom subsequently ran an e-assessment technology company for 10 years, developing and deploying innovative e-assessment products for customers in the private and public sectors, before joining AlphaPlus as an educational consultant.
As an educational consultant, Tom has regularly acted as consultant to SQA, working with key staff and stakeholders to help develop and refine SQA’s strategy for e-assessment. He has worked on a number of assessment projects funded by QCDA, BECTA, JISC, and others . He has latterly been working as a Functional Skills reviewer for QCDA during AO accreditation, as a Functional Skills author for several awarding organisations, and on the independent evaluation of the pilot of the linked pair of GCSEs in mathematics. He is also a technical consultant to the SMART Centre at the University of Durham. He is the architect of two current e-assessment products, one of which won the Scottish e-Assessment Award for Summative Assessment in 2009. He has published papers at academic conferences and in high quality, internationally recognised journals