Assessing Online Learning
This page contains suggestions and ideas for assessing students in digital formats.
- 7 Ways Assess Students Online and Minimize Cheating – Article by Flower Darby in the Chronicle of Higher Education (September 24, 2020)
- Alternatives to High Stakes Tests: PDF Version
- Reasons to Not use High Stakes Testing: PDF Version
These first two webpages are from the University of Calgary’s Teaching and Learning Centre. They’ve done an excellent job of putting materials together for faculty teaching in a primarily digital environment. Easy to read and with lots of relevant ideas for NIC, these are two worthy skimmable sites.
- Five Principles for Meaningful Online Assessment
- Alternative Online Assessment Ideas
- Online Assessment in Higher Education
- “As online academic programs become more common in higher education, more instructors must design their courses and student assessments for the online environment. When designing online assessments common considerations such as aligning assessments with course learning outcomes, providing clear criteria for students, and protecting academic integrity need to be made. However, there are additional and unique factors to consider for the online environment, such as using technology effectively and addressing any student concerns. Through a combination of research and practice, this guide is a resource for instructors to help plan, design, and implement student assessments in fully online courses.”
This article is an interview of Jason Openo and Dianne Conrad. Openo serves as director of the Centre for Innovation and Teaching Excellence at Medicine Hat College in Alberta, Canada, and Dianne Conrad teaches in Athabasca University’s Center for Distance Education. The interview was done by the journal, Inside Higher Education, where they asked Openo and Conrad to share their thoughts on the state of assessment and the potential for its evolution resulting from their book, “Assessment Strategies for Online Learning”.
Contact North (an online learning organization for post-secondary in Ontario) did a project highlighting the ‘pockets of innovation’ going on in colleges and universities. This page provides some good examples of online assessment activities.
Faculty Focus is a daily newsletter from Magna Publications for higher education. Written by experienced educators in colleges and universities, these two articles highlight the challenges of assessment being done online – and some solutions!