Strategies for authenticating student
work for learning and assessment
Assessment advice and guidelines
Purpose
Schools are responsible for ensuring that judgments about achievement in Authority and
Authority-registered subjects are based on responses that can be authenticated as a student’s
own work. Schools are also responsible for making judgments about achievement when
authorship of student responses cannot be authenticated, or the response is not entirely the
student’s.
Teachers’ practices for monitoring the development of student work completed outside class,
where open access to human and physical resources is available, should be planned to ensure
that responses are validly each student’s own work. The guidelines identify a range of
approaches that schools and teachers use, through the various stages of task development and
implementation, to ensure that each student’s work is their own.
Resources
This advice and guidelines should be read in conjunction with the following strategies in the
A–Z of Senior Moderation:

moderation strategy 4.1: Authenticating authorship of student responses

moderation strategy 4.6: Making judgments when student authorship cannot be
authenticated.
For further advice about authentication and making judgments when the authorship of a response
cannot be authenticated, or the response is wholly, or in part, plagiarised, refer to the QCAA
videos: Implementing teaching, learning, and assessment.
Guidelines
Assessment design
When designing assessment, it is necessary to implement strategies for establishing the
authorship of student work as the response is developed. Questions to consider include:
Does the assessment cater for the school’s unique context, resources and students, the
requirements of the relevant syllabus and of the assessment program described in the
school’s work program or study plan?
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Is the nature and degree of teacher involvement in the planning, drafting, rehearsal or
execution of a response clearly stated on the instrument? This may include checkpoints and
draft due dates that may require:
-
annotated references of textual, audiovisual and/or electronic sources
-
a working bibliography of primary and secondary sources
-
a process diary, journal, log book or reflection statements to demonstrate the
development of work.

Does the task include appropriate scaffolding to help students with time management?

Are examples of appropriate focus questions to guide understanding of the topic or issue
provided?

Is there significant classroom time allowed to prepare for and complete the task?

Do students have access to resources, both human and physical, during the planning and
drafting of the response?

Are students able to negotiate the mode of presentation, for example, oral or written
presentation of the development of work?
Planning the response
When monitoring student planning, questioning can be used to clarify understanding and may
include:

What is your big idea, key concept, topic or moral in _____?

Do your focus questions allow you to explore _____?

What are the roles of each person in the group?

What mode(s) of presentation will you use to present your response?
Development of response
When monitoring the production of a student response, questioning can be used to explore
further or clarify some aspects of the student’s own work. Questions may include:

What is significant about the _____ issue?

Are your focus questions still providing direction for your research?

What ideas/details can you add to ______?

What conclusions might be drawn from _____?

What actions are you proposing?

What might you infer from _____?

What aspects of the project/practical work have been written, created or developed by
others? Have you acknowledged these sources?

Which sources of information did you find most useful and why?

What are the characteristics/parts of ______?
Strategies for authenticating student work for learning and assessment
Assessment advice and guidelines
Page 2 of 3
Queensland Curriculum & Assessment Authority
July 2014

Expand on this point _____

Explain the significance of _____

What notes/data informed your conclusion(s) and outcome?
Drafting and final submission of a student response
To ensure judgments about student achievement are valid, it is necessary to establish student
authorship. Teachers may:
 require additional submission dates to monitor student progress
 require a written, spoken or electronic presentation of a draft response
 provide written or oral summary of feedback and advice to the whole class
 annotate a draft response
 require and retain original planning documents and all drafts of the work
 clarify aspects of the response through an interview or spoken discussion
 require formal acknowledgment and declaration that all work is the student’s own
 require submission of the response through applications available to the school.
More information
If you would like more information, please visit the QCAA website www.qcaa.qld.edu.au and
search for ‘Advice about strategies for authenticating student work for learning and assessment’.
Alternatively, phone (07) 3864 0375 or email the P–12 Implementation Branch at
qau@qcaa.qld.edu.au.
Strategies for authenticating student work for learning and assessment
Assessment advice and guidelines
Page 3 of 3
Queensland Curriculum & Assessment Authority
July 2014