On Friday, 6th March 2026, the Teaching and Learning Unit (TLU) at Munster Technological University (MTU) celebrated a significant milestone with the official launch of the e-book, “Reimagining Assessment and Feedback Together (RAFT): A Collective Action Research Journey September 2021 – June 2025”. The event, attended by approximately 30 staff, featured a welcome by Dr. Angela Wright, Head of the TLU at MTU and an official launch by Dr. Sharon McGreevy, who is working with the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning at the Higher Education Authority (HEA).
The RAFT initiative[1] was originally established in 2021 as a year-long action research change program designed to address a critical national challenge – student satisfaction with assessment & feedback. Over the course of the initiative, RAFT has empowered 60 staff members to act as teacher-researchers, conducting 43 distinct RAFT interventions that have impacted over 1,000 students across MTU’s six campuses and more than 20 departments.
Central to RAFT’s success is its focus on student-staff partnership and whole-class co-creation, which moves beyond selective partnership to ensure inclusivity for all learners. By actively involving students in designing the rules of the game, interventions have successfully clarified assessment expectations and developed students’ capacity to critically assess the quality of their own work.
In her short address Dr. Angela Wright commended colleagues ‘for leading out on change and best practice and being willing to give time and effort to making improvements in your teaching and assessment.’. In launching the e-book, Dr. Sharon McGreevy highlighted how the ‘RAFT initiative at MTU is an excellent example of how institutions can support educators to transform assessment practices in meaningful and sustainable ways’ and how key themes such as student voice, student partnership, and academic integrity and are values that ‘are more critical than ever’.
The e-book is now available as an Open Educational Resource (OER) on the National Forum/HEA National Resource Hub. Through focussing on process as much as product, RAFT positions assessment reform as an ongoing, relational, and inquiry-driven endeavour. Educators across the sector are invited to adapt, question, and build upon these case-studies and through this process continue the collective work of reimagining assessment and feedback together.
Pictured from left to right are Sinead Huskisson, Tom O’Mahony, Sharon McGreevy & Angela Wright
Participants from the Dept. of Sport Leisure & Childhood Studies (MTU Cork) with Sharon McGreevy and TLU colleagues.
[1] RAFT is funded by the HEA and the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education via the Strategic Alignment of Teaching and Learning Enhancement fund. We gratefully acknowledge this funding.
