OBEs may take different forms

• Traditional sit-in/limited time examination, with varying degrees of access to resources and references. At present, OBEs at NUS are essentially of this kind.
  
  
• As in the above form, but with prior notice (seen) questions;
  
  
• Take-home: question(s) handed out; answers to be attempted without assistance from others and to be returned within a specified period of time; this is viable only with strict adherence to an honour system (e.g. the Honor Code practised at Stanford University).

Permitted access to resource materials may vary in

• degree: from restricted (e.g. formula sheets and tables or prescribed number of texts) to totally unrestricted (any quantity of any material), and
  
  
• kind: any or a combination of notes, textbooks and electronic materials.

OBEs are intellectually demanding

Education, and particularly higher education, should equip you with more sophisticated intellectual abilities and skills. Benjamin Bloom's taxonomy may provide a useful frame of reference. While knowledge is fundamental in the hierarchy of skills, its acquisition is a basic skill made meaningful only by other higher order skills being brought to bear on it. You need to develop and demonstrate your ability to understand, apply, analyse, synthesise and evaluate your knowledge base.

Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives

What you will be tested for

Recognise the rationale for OBEs and the priorities involved. Retention and recall of factual information will no longer carry a high premium; more sophisticated demands will be made of you. Abilities that you will be tested for will include:

• application of knowledge,
  
  
• evidence of a `trained mind' (e.g. conceptual grasp, critical thinking and analytical ability),
  
  
• capacity for autonomous learning (e.g. maturity and independence of thought, potential for knowledge creation and application),
  
  
• skills needed for functioning in employment and real-life situations (e.g. OBEs often employ case studies and scenarios).

Some implications for learning

• Learner roles/responsibilities

  Responsibility is not vested solely in the teacher-authority figure. You have to participate in, and make sense of, your own learning. Your roles as a learner include those of

  • decoding,
  • investigating,
  • applying/adapting,
  • collaborating,
  • generating new knowledge.
    
    
• Preparation

  OBEs require, among other things, that you

  • learn for understanding rather than recall,
  • make good notes and organise materials for speedy retrieval.