1. Online Assessment and Feedback
2019

2. Principles of Online Assessment
Consider how your assessment method aligns with your learning outcomes (you must be testing for LO achievement and not for outlying skills and knowledge)
Structure opportunities for students to collaborate/interact with other students and with you
Consider informal ways to assess student engagement and understanding

3. Principles of Online Assessment
Ensure that the assessment methods are at the right level of difficulty and weighting/effort
Consider assessment that relates to the discipline (not only an academic context)
Design weekly/module activities and formative assessments that develop skills and knowledge for formal assessments

4. Online Assessment
What do you feel are the benefits of Online Assessment? What are some of your concerns about Online Assessment?

5. Benefits of Online Assessment

6. Concerns about Online Assessment

7. Benefits of Online Assessment
Effective management tools (efficiency)
Tools to facilitate assessment processes
Provide timely and comprehensive feedback
Audio feedback can save time and personalise online learning experience
Monitor student progress
Everything can be housed in one portal/tab
Simplify marking processes
Some automated marking (quizzes)
Online submission
Record of submissions

8. Benefits of Online Assessment
Authentic learning opportunities
Feedback/comments ’banks’ can be created and used multiple times (efficiency)
Recorded demonstration of teaching and learning
Once set up can be used for all course iterations
Clear and organised assessment outlines and processes
Record of submissions (discussion board, blogs, turnitin reports etc.)

9. Main sticking points for academics with online assessment
Plagiarism
Generating interaction/group discussions
Student presentations and oral reports
Skill development - procedures, relationship building, etc.
Allocation of assessment weighting – do we attach assessment weighting to online discussions / activities
Workload – reduce marking time, automating marking processes

10. Considerations
Assessment feedback – written work, rubrics, audio feedback, skill development
Limited informal assessment tools i.e. how do we gauge student understanding and engagement during the course?
Assessment design – use of quizzes and tests – do these develop higher order thinking skills?
Workload – reduce marking time, automating marking processes

11. Discussion
From your own experience as an online learner or educator, recount an example of when an online tool(s) for assessment was effective?
From your own experience as an online learner or educator, recount an example of when an online tool(s) for assessment was not effective?

12. Assessment Design Consider why students may feel the need to cheat:
- Is the assessment too difficult?
- Poorly outlined?
- Too heavily weighted?
- Poor weighting/effort ratio?
- Is there too much content being covered to make sense of in an assessment?
- Is there not enough time to complete the task?

13. Designing Online Assessments for Academic Integrity
Avoid using the same assignment topics and questions each time a course is offered
Set very specific questions rather than broad or general ones
Build in requirements for submission of assessment process, not just the final product (reflection, how they completed the steps etc.)
Devise alternative assessment types that require ongoing evidence of students’ engagement in course/content
Design assessments that reflect your discipline rather than academia (essay writing)

14. Designing Online Assessment
Assessment Procedures
Provide timely feedback to students to inform next assessment
Create plenty of opportunities for students to ask questions and discuss the assessment requirements (discussion thread, FAQs, collaborate session,
Provide clear and simple outline of the assessment description – have it peer reviewed
Provide opportunities for students to practice and develop the skills required to complete each assessment

15. Tips for managing assessment:
Use the technologies
– Online marking tools (GradeMark/Inline Grading, Turnitin)
– Rubrics
– Retention Centre (monitor performance)
Provide opportunities for Practice/Review
– Practice quizzes
– Encourage use of Echo (Panopto) recordings for review
Access the Student Preview Tool
– What items are visible in ‘My Grades’
Keep the Grade Centre simple

16. Online Assessment Tools and Ideas
MCQs, quizzes and short answer tests
Blogs Post ideas, opinions, discussions, and responses on a shared topic
Wikis Collaborate in creating and editing content
Journals Reflect on learning, observations, problems, approaches etc.
Modified Essay questions (MEQs) Sequence of questions, could be based on a case/scenario/problem

17. Types of assessment with examples

18. Online Assessment Ideas
Reflections on the process At various times students turn in written descriptions of their research process.
Problem solving approach What steps would be taken to solve a problem.
Literature review Evaluative annotated bibliography.
Science in the news Find evidence in literature for news release claims.
Event initiated examples Evaluate a current event based on literature findings.
Letter to the Editor Choose a newspaper/magazine and write an editorial.
Design a theme for a conference Describe why this topic would be of interest to experts in this field.
Adopt a persona Perspective of a famous person in your field/discipline about specific topic
Read and find evidence Read an editorial, article, reflection and find evidence to support/refute claims.

19. Online Assessment Ideas
Create a webpage Select a topic to do with course content.
Biography Select a scholar/researcher in field and report on career, influences, major ideas, moods and trends in research program.
Follow a piece of legislation through government processes What groups are lobbying for/against it and why?
Follow a current foreign policy issue as it develops Have students adopt the perspective of one of the various groups involved and predict the next move.
Write a resume and cover letter (real or fictional) Find a relevant job posting in your field
Write a presentation proposal Find a relevant scholarly or industry conference and write a proposal abstract.
Write an exam Provide answers and justify rationale for questions asked.
Write a report
Complete a case or problem-based learning activity
Complete a mini-research task/experiment

20. Online Assessment Ideas
Write a review of a performance, a movie, a book, a journal article, a guest speaker lecture…
Write a newspaper, magazine, webpage story on a topic.
Evaluate an article in a trade magazine (Psychology Today, Harvard Business Review) – Compared to findings in scholarly journals.
Compare and contrast primary and secondary sources.
Evaluate a website.
Compare and contrast the state of knowledge on a topic in two different decades or eras.
Prepare for a hypothetical interview Have students do background research on a company or job offer and how they fit with job description.
Compare and contrast the content, style, and audience of three different scholarly journals in a field.
Compare and contrast a scholarly journal article with an article from a popular magazine.
Write and conduct an interview

21. Help/Support and Resources
UoNline Support Team - #17101
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