Questions about online assessments

It is crucial to understand that the learning context has changed, and making sure that students acquire the right knowledge and competencies has become one of the cornerstones of education. This has undoubtedly resulted in teachers having many questions about how to conduct assessment and avoid cheating. However, there are many different assessment options; we recommend continuous assessment rather than a single final exam, so that students themselves can identify their own weaknesses and work on them.

"The way we see it, students should acquire not just content but also competencies to equip them for the job market. Starting from this premise, the dynamic and flexible nature of the UOC's educational model allows students to become more involved on an ongoing basis throughout their training," explained Xavier Baraza, Associate Dean for Teaching at the UOC's Faculty of Economics and Business during a webinar on digital assessment strategies organized by the Peruvian Ministry of Education.

Digital assessment strategies

The new student profile requires a more tailored learning process. To achieve this, it is important to combine methodology and technology in digital assessments in accordance with the various strategies of the course.

"Not all strategies can be applied to all courses. In other words, some can be applied to introductory courses or to courses with many students, or maybe to subjects with not so many students, because assessing a student in a quantitative course such as statistics is not the same as assessing them in a course such as economic history, for example. And this is why assessments should be considered not in terms of each individual course but in terms of the whole programme, and we have to be able to confirm the student's identity and validate what they're doing," said Baraza.

Interaction between different players during the assessment process

There is no doubt that technology has formed part of the educational dynamics of this new era, promoting independent learning in which students aren't merely the recipients of information but also provide it. This is why collaboration between students, involving all the players in the educational process, such as their peers, their teachers and even administrators, plays an important role in digital assessment.

"Since the UOC's exams are held entirely online, we've put in place tools such as chat facilities to enable both students and the entire team involved in the exams to send notifications or resolve any concerns immediately, both with their teachers and with the technical department," explained Àngels Novoa, Director of Campus Services at the UOC.

Feedback as a key element

Feedback is a key component of continuous digital assessment. In fact, it is defined as one of the benchmarks of the UOC's educational model. "It's there and you have to do it, but always in a positive way, reinforcing the student's work," stated Baraza.

Although there are different levels of feedback, it should start at level 0; i.e. when the deadline for an activity is over and the teacher gives students their results. That is when they compare their own work with the teacher's solution.

There is also group or collective feedback. Here it is important to make a group distinction when using the various communication channels "because, if all students are making the same mistake, this is related to the teaching staff's work", added Baraza.

And the third type is individual feedback, where the teacher explains the improvements they can each make directly to each student, motivating them to continue with the course.

Does online assessment lead to increased cheating?

You can't just take the way face-to-face assessments are carried out and apply it online. Mass online testing is a huge challenge in terms of technological and human resources, even for online universities, among other things because every student's identity must be checked and plagiarism avoided. This is why the UOC has led the development of the TeSLA project, an online assessment system that authenticates student identification and the authorship of learning activities in online environments by means of facial recognition, voice recognition, typing patterns and anti-plagiarism systems, among other techniques.

The development of TeSLA has been made possible thanks to the involvement of 80 professionals from 10 expert organizations, 8 universities, 3 quality agencies, 4 research centres and 3 technology companies. Furthermore, an open source version of the software has been developed. It will be available from January 2021 for those institutions wishing to use it, with support from consultancy services guided by the UOC to understand how it works and why it makes sense to use it in education.