Digital Transformation Where It Matters: A Four Pillar Maturity Model for Diverse Assessment Practices in Higher Education

Abstract

Digital transformation in higher education has been widely conceptualised through institutional frameworks such as those developed by EDUCAUSE and Jisc. While these offer robust lenses for analysing organisation-wide change, assessment transformation within disciplines is an ongoing process that requires continuous measurement and validation at a meso level. Assessment, as a core pedagogical and regulatory function, is closely linked to institutional structures but enacted primarily at the course and teacher levels. Consequently, nuanced transformations in assessment practices may not be fully captured by high-level organisational frameworks. This study addresses the gap by introducing the Digital Assessment Maturity Index (DAMI), a framework for analysing assessment transformation within higher education. The model was developed through an iterative abductive process that combined institutional digital transformation frameworks, contemporary assessment literature, and a contextual analysis of assessment practices at a technical university in Sweden. Rather than adopting organisation-wide dimensions, the study selectively synthesised concepts relevant to the local enactment of digital assessment at course and programme levels. This process identified four interrelated constructs: (1) Adoption & Coverage; (2) Efficiency & Throughput; (3) Authenticity & Learning Alignment; and (4) Trust & Reliability. Institution-wide dimensions such as governance, finance, and policy alignment aspects were excluded because they operate beyond the assessment enactment. The resulting four-pillar DAMI model was operationalised using an institution-wide survey of teachers at the bachelor’s and master's levels, enabling an initial empirical mapping of the university’s digital assessment maturity. The findings from 314 responses from faculty demonstrate that digital assessment at the university in 2024 is characterised by substantial adoption and efficiency gains, alongside persistent trust and reliability concerns and uneven pedagogical transformation. The model also demonstrates sensitivity to both barriers and enablers of assessment transformation, offering actionable insights to inform programme-level improvements. These outcomes reveal that the DAMI model can isolate assessment as a distinct unit of analysis and derive its dimensions through cross-framework conceptual reduction rather than institutional abstraction. As a next step, DAMI will be evaluated longitudinally through repeated institution-wide surveys.