The e-Assessment Association Conference: an island of progress, innovation, and perseverance. But what next?

It took 29 nations, over 300 delegates, and a multitude of interests to deliver the latest successful e-Assessment Association (eAA) conference at St Paul’s London. A confident sector, secure in the understanding that their success impacts tens of millions of learners every year.

We’re now seeing a bow wave of international-class case studies. Huge scale, successful implementations. Regular people prepared to stand on stage and passionately advocate for their client, project, and, most importantly, the learners. The event can now reflect the heritage of its cause: e-assessment veterans and founders who took the pioneer pain, got their exit, and now doing a well-earned victory lap. But yet, there remains a wall of social media blow-hards and superficial policy tourists who think it’s all an illusion, and e-assessment won’t work.

A wave of international case studies, successful implementations, passionate advocacy – yet too many blow-hards and policy tourists still think e-assessment won’t work.

I reflected on an ed-tech event up the road, with founders and the investment community trying to raise funding to handle the latest tricky and frothy AI bauble. The desperate scramble to (re)write investor memos and pitch decks to put AI’s name in lights.

This isn’t huge opulent exhibition booths in a draughty, impersonal remote conference centre pushing widgets to schools. Or a chi-chi venue in Islington selling golden uplands to over-excited founders. All the action was at St Paul's. Time and again, case studies, hard-won successful implementations, AI usage in live programmes (not pilots), international awards for excellence. Decades-old compound evidence of a successful sector.

Credit: e-Assessment Association & Telling Photography

The eAA must take a moment to absorb how far it has travelled. It still has to wrangle passive policy blockers, dopey doom-mongers, derisory can’t-change-won’t-change educators. Its members and sponsors will be on the right side of history, but there’s a lot more still to do.

The eAA should reflect how far it’s travelled. Their members and sponsors will be on the right side of history, but there’s much more to do.

The event has the people who do the hard yards of discovery, scoping, deploying, advocating. Yet it is still an undiscovered gem. For those who moan about the eAA and conference - who blame awarding bodies for ‘not buying correctly, the way we want’. Get over yourself. It’s not about you. Sell better, show you deliver great value and evidence better outcomes for customers and learners. And go easy on the selfies – it’s not about you.

Quit moaning about exam owners and awarding bodies. Get over yourself, sell better, deliver great value, show better outcomes.

So what next? The sector must reach, connect, and engage outside its bubble. Leverage enthusiastic school groups. Those countries unburdened by paper-based legacies. And those such as New Zealand and Finland who’ve already done it. Sectors that now have decades-long stories to tell. With cyber wars waging daily, let's hear more about digital risk management. And what Digital Sovereignty means for exams and assessment in a trillion dollar supplier landscape.

The sector needs to get outside its bubble. What do the daily cyber wars and Digital Sovereignty mean for the risk management of e-Assessment and digital exams?

I'm proud to be a small part of this sector. It's a thrill to see customers tell their change story and advocate for learner equity and justice. There’s a wholly positive impact made not just for learners, educators, and families. But also for those behind the scenes: doing the 9-5 in nurturing sector confidence, protecting and building programmes into new sectors and geographies.

Hats off to those who are doing full-blooded real projects and deployments across e-assessment and digital exams – fully immersed in AI and VR at terrific scale. It’s actually enjoyable to be at a conference among those who are doing it for real and have done for decades. There’s a time and place for hauling a slide deck around for seed money. The folks up the road need to put down their chai lattes, and see where the real action is!