Online assessment at higher education in COVID-19 Era

Online assessment at higher education in COVID-19 Era

Lo Van Pang lovangpang@gmail.com University of Foreign Language Studies, The University of Da Nang, Vietnam
Summary: 
Since late April 2021, Vietnam has experienced the 4th outbreak of COVID-19. It was also the time to end the second semester of the school year at colleges and universities in Vietnam. To curb the pandemic, the Vietnam government has implemented many strict measures in public places, such as social distancing, quarantine processes, and embracing hygiene and sanitation throughout the country. As a result, almost all schools were closed, and both teachers and students had to work from home. This qualitative study sought to examine the lecturer’s experiences of online assessment at a regional university. Information was gathered by conducting multiple interviews via the Zalo application with 20 lecturers at the University of Foreign Language Studies. An analysis of the results of this study found the most preferred assessment methods to be written assignments, multiple-choice tests, quizzes, presentations, and oral examinations. In addition, Zoom and Microsoft Teams are believed to be the most popular testing environments. Through this study, many challenges of online assessment have been unveiled, such as cheating, teacher’s workload, and testing process problems.
Keywords: 
higher education
online assessment
COVID-19 era
Refers: 

[1] Ahmed, F. R. A., Abdel-Khalek, S., Ahmed, T. E., Saeed, R. A., Alhumyani, H., & Abu-Zinadah, H. (2021). Analysis and challenges of robust E-exams performance under COVID-19. Results in Physics, 23, 103987.

[2] Anderson, T., & Dron, J. (2011). Three generations of distance education pedagogy. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 12(3), 80-97.

[3] Anh, D. K. (2020, April 15). Việt Nam: Covid 19 và thách thức với ngành giáo dục [Vietnam: Covid 19 and challenges for education sector]. Friedrich-EbertStiftung. Retrieved from https://vietnam.fes.de/post/ viet-nam-COVID-19-va-thach-thuc-doi-voi-nganhgiao-duc

[4] Anh, H. (2021, May 13). Dịch COVID-19, sinh viên có thi trực tuyến? [COVID-19 pandemic, do students do online exams?]. Thanh Nien. Retrieved from https:// thanhnien.vn/giao-duc/dich-COVID-19-sinh-vienco-thi-truc-tuyen-1382248.html

[5] Birenbaum, M., Breuer, K., Cascallar, E., Dochy, F., Dori, Y., Ridgway, J., & Wiesemes, R. (2006). A learning integrated assessment system. Educational Research Review, 1(1), 61-67.

[6] Braithwaite, D. O., Moore, J., & Abetz, J. S. (2014). “‘I need numbers before I will buy it’”: Reading and writing qualitative scholarship on close relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 31(4), 490-496.

[7] Dick, M., Sheard, J., Bareiss, C., Carter, J., Joyce, D., Harding, T., & & Laxer, C. (2002). Addressing student cheating: definitions and solutions. ACM SigCSE Bulletin, 35(2), 172-184.

[8] Diedenhofen, B., & Musch, J. (2017). PageFocus: Using paradata to detect and prevent cheating on online achievement tests. Behavior Research Methods Volume, 49(4), 1444-1459.

[9] Gehringer, E. (2010). Online vs. On-Paper Exams. In 2010 Annual Conference & Exposition (pp. 15-927).

[10] Guangul, F. M., Suhail, A. H., Khalit, & M. I., & Khidhir, B. A. (2020). Challenges of remote assessment in higher education in the context of COVID-19: a case study of Middle East College. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 32(4), 519-535.

[11] Khachfe, H. H., Chahrour, M., Sammouri, J., Salhab, H., Makki, B. E., & Fares, M. (2020). An epidemiological study on COVID-19: A rapidly spreading Disease. Cureus, 12(3), 1-9.

[12] Maggioni, M., & Rossignoli, D. (2020). Clever little lies: Math performance and cheating in primary schools in Congo. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 172(C), 380-400

[13] Martinez, J. (2020, June 22). Take this pandemic moment to improve education. Edusource. Retrieved from https://edsource.org/2020/take-this-pandemicmoment-to-improve-education/...

[14] Meletiou, G.,Voyiatzis, I.,Stavroulaki, V., &Sgouropoulou, C. (2012). Design and implementation of an E-exam system based on the Android platform. In 2012 16th Panhellenic Conference on Informatics (pp. 375- 380). IEEE.

[15] Torshiz, M. N., Esfaji, A. S., & Amintoosi, H. (2020). Enhanced schemes for data fragmentation, allocation, and replication in distributed database systems. Computer Systems Science and Engineering, 35(2), 99-112.

[16] Peterson, J. (2019). An analysis of academic dishonesty in online classes. Mid-Western Educational Researcher, 31(1), 24-36.

[17] Pettersson, H., Manley, B., & Hernandez, S. (2021). Tracking COVID-19’s global spread. CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2020/health/ coronavirus-maps-and-cases/

[18] Phuc, T. H. (2021). University of foreign language studies, the University of Da Nang. Retrieved from http://ufl. udn.vn/eng/introduction/introduction1/introduction. html

[19] Rehman, M. F. ur, Fariha, C., Anwar, A., Shahzad, N., Ahmad, M., Mukhtar, S., & Farhan Ul Haque, M. (2021). Novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic: A recent mini review. Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal, 19, 612–623.

[20] Remuzzi, A., & Remuzzi, G. (2020). COVID-19 and Italy: what next? The lancet, 395(10231), 1225-1228.

[21] Rowe, N. C. (2004). Cheating in online student assessment: Beyond plagiarism. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 7(2), 1-8.

[22] Rutgers. (2021). Remote exams and assessments. Retrieved October 7, 2021, from https://sasoue. rutgers.edu/teaching-learning-guides/remoteexams-assessment#special-advice-for-open-bookassessment-in-quantitative-courses

[23] Stuhlmiller, C. (1996). Rescuers of Cypress: learning from disaster. Peter Lang.

[24] Thomas, P., Price, B., Paine, C., & Richards, M. (2002). Remote electronic examinations: student experiences. British Journal of Educational Teachnology, 33(5), 537-549.

[25] Tinoca, L., Oliveira, I., & Pereira, A. (2014). A conceptual framework for e-assessment in higher education: authenticity, consistency, transparency and practicability. In Handbook of Research on Transnational Higher Education Management (pp. 652–673). IGI Global.

[26] Tiong, L. C. O., & Lee, H. J. (2021). E-cheating prevention measures: Detection of Ccheating at online examinations using deep learning approach - A case study. arXiv preprint arXiv:2101.09841.http://arxiv.org/abs/2101.09841

[27] Watson, G. R., & Sottile, J. (2010). Cheating in the digital age: Do students cheat more in online courses? Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 13(1). https://mds.marshall.edu/cgi/viewcontent. cgi?article=1000&context=eft_faculty

[28] Yong-Sheng, Z., Xiu-Mei, F., & Ai-Qin, B. (2015). The research and design of online examination system. In 2015 7th international conference on information technology in medicine and education (ITME) (pp. 687-691). IEEE.

Articles in Issue