As you may know, UTS has been using OPELA (Online Post Enrolment Language Assessment) to provide students with an indication of their academic language skills, as well as inform the provision of (integrated and non-integrated) language support. Ideally, all incoming students will have the opportunity to undertake OPELA, whatever their pathway to university or language background. The number of students completing OPELA has been increasing each year (approximately 8,000 in Autumn 2017), thanks to increasing uptake across the University.
For this session (Spring 2017) data from OPELA will be transferred to CASS and students will be able to access their OPELA information in My Student Admin (MSA). MSA will provide students with information about their OPELA completion in terms of basic, intermediate and good proficiency. There is also a link to a UTS webpage with further information About OPELA, which contains an email address (opela@uts.edu.au) for any further enquiries.
As previously, faculties will arrange for students to complete OPELA, which may be done remotely or on campus depending on the arrangements within each faculty. Faculties can access OPELA information for their students from CASS via a new report called the Opela Scores Report (in the General Enquiries Reports menu).
IML will continue to work with ITD and other stakeholders with a view to further improving and streamlining the OPELA processes. For further information please contact Kerry Hunter [Kerry.Hunter@uts.edu.au] or Susan Hoadley [Susan.Hoadley@uts.edu.au].
Image by Chris Shain.