Assessment in the Time of Pandemic: A Panic-free Guide

Under the current scenario, university lecturers need to rethink their assessment strategy. Many will need to shift from closed-books, time-limited examinations, to remote assessments. The choice of remote assessment should not be an after-thought as it may define our response to the current crisis and will affect Universities’ academic standards. Students’ performance, marks and final degree classification depend on assessment and we owe to set up fair assessments in line with learning outcomes. We offer a five-step guide on how to change assessments and discuss six alternatives. For each alternative we discuss their potential advantages and disadvantages for students’ learning and engagement, but also adoption and organisational procedures. Finally, given that students engaging academic malpractice (i.e. cheating) is one of the most common concerns regarding any sort of remote assessment, we explain how good assessment design can help to mitigate some of these problems.