Networked Assessment

Abstract

This essay argues that networked thinking represents a logic applicable to writing assessment. Traditionally, assessment at the programmatic or individual levels depends on the circulation of topoi in order to make meaning. These topoi include the circulated points that writers write for multiple media, multiple audiences, multiple genres, and over time. A networked assessment, on the other hand, takes up Latour's notion of the trace and its account. By focusing on the tracing of a given program's network, for instance, the role of assessment shifts toward an understanding of activity relationships as opposed to generic outcomes. In turn, assessment follows a new media logic in order to understand how a given grouping of activities and agents reveals a program's work. © 2010 Elsevier Inc.