Unlike grades, which are identified with particular students, assessments are almost always anonymous. Occasionally, assessment techniques require students to organize seriously and spend energy committing their thoughts to paper. It would be nice if the students could write their papers anonymously but still be able to get them back after the professor has read them. The use of Personal Identification Codes (PICs) permits anonymous assessment exchanges between students and professor while allowing the retrival of papers by their owners.

Multiple Card Exchange is a technique that allows public airing of private views without jeapordizing anyone's anonymity. It is especially useful in large classes. The Collect and Redeal method has a similar (but not identical) purpose. It works better in small classes.

Using Anonymous Assessments

1. Personal Identification Codes. On the back side of assessment cards [or sheets], students enter a two-letter and four-digit code. In this way each student constructs a private, personalized identifier so that assessments can be handed in confidentially and subsequently retrieved. Only the student knows his or her Personal Identification Code (PIC) yet, if a professor wishes, sequences of assessments can be tracked for the same anonymous student. Canned combinations such as AA0000 or ZZ9999 should be avoided. Overall, 6,760,000 possible combinations exist. The chance of two students generating the same PIC (assuming random distribution, Poisson statistics) doesn't rise appreciably above zero until about a million combinations have been used. The PIC is useable for an entire course; students should write their PICs in their course notebooks for future reference when confidential assessments are requested.

Sample workable PICs are DJ2083, MM1285, OS5304, and ZW9927.

2. Multiple Exchange. This assessment method allows students to express publicly their views on a sensitive or controversial issue but simultaneously to keep private their identification with any particular sentiment. Multiple Exchanges can be accomplished as follows: The professor presents students with alternative ways of looking at a controversial issue (e.g., Self Assessment on the Classroom Assessment page main menu) and asks them to indicate on a folded sheet of paper or 3x5 card which viewpoint applies to them. Students swap face-down cards or folded papers 3-4 times. Results are surveyed publicly by a show of hands without compromising the anonymity of individuals. This method works rapidly and well in large classes of fifty to several hundred.

3. Collect and Redeal. This method is especially good for airing concerns (e.g., Muddiest Point on the Classroom Assessment page main menu) in groups of up to 15 individuals. Students write their views on a folded sheet of paper or 3x5 card and pass them in (with or without their PICs). The professor or a member of the class shuffles and deals out the cards. Members of the class read the redistributed cards aloud as if they were expressing their own views. Two caveats: (a) Occasionally, a student will receive his or her own card back. The group should be advised ahead of time to keep quiet about this, because no one beyond the recipient knows. (b) By immediately redealing, the professor has not had a chance to read the responses in private. Therefore, this technique should not be used if the professor is wary of sharing the immediacy of assessment discovery with students.