Online examination and assessment

Blog as an examination form is a series of posts (published in course form). In the examination context, publication primarily means publication in a course context for the course coordinator or course team and possibly even for fellow students. This refers to the form and its affordances and not that it should be made public. With a blog, you can capture a process or development as well as basic knowledge in different themes or subject areas (such as separate posts) or focus on in-depth study by raising increasingly complex issues within a subject area. You can think of the blog as a home examination with one question at a time, but where it is easier to distinguish other people’s voices (to prevent cheating). 

The advantages of a thread with recurring posts also make it easy to develop a formative assessment process and there can even be several teachers as reviewers who can easily review the process and the type of comments other teachers have given. Everything is gathered in one place, and this leads to increased learning for the student as the process becomes visible. Different competencies can thus be assessed, and it becomes less fragmented than assessing questions divided into a home exam. It can be seen as a window into the student’s learning process. 

Although the focus of blog posts is to make a process visible, most active verbs can be examined as a blog. A series of blog posts can be used to represent basic knowledge or to increase complexity by starting with basic levels such as explaining, summarizing, identifying and giving examples and then introducing more levels of knowledge such as assessing relevance in different contexts, e.g. evaluate, rank, reformulate, argue, etc. 

Support tools 

In MyMoodle there is the dialogue function where you as the course coordinator can initiate a dialogue in thread form with all students individually or in groups. Several teachers can be given access to the dialogue and make assessments. A major advantage is the overview that the forum provides, including comments the student has received previously, which facilitates both progression and variation in feedback. However, this requires clear headings so that assessing teachers can easily find new posts. A standard forum thread on the learning platform can be used for this type of examination. 

A group of students builds a common knowledge base in a specific area in the form of a wiki. All new information is registered and changes to old information can be tracked so that it is possible to distinguish who has done what. Information processing is necessary to produce a useful, informative short text mass including keywords and enables students to independently process a large amount of data. Collaborating allows students to compare their own perception of the material with the perception of others and in this way may interpret the information to be summarized from several points of view. The disadvantages are that you can delete each other’s information and that the final information does not reflect the work done. The task can be supplemented with or evaluated through reflection, time allocation, individual diary or project diary. 

Support tools 

Wiki and MyMoodle. 

Wikipedia as a teaching method and tool in examination 

Combine training and examination of both knowledge goals and skills goals: 

• search and read scientific articles, use reference databases and search engines, to make relevant selections based on defined and delimited questions 
• structure and make the story available to a wider public 
• collaborate in a writing process and interact with a scientifically trained supervisor 
• critically and systematically integrate knowledge and to analyze, assess and handle complex phenomena, issues and situations even with limited information 

Motivated students: 

• write for a wide readership 
• the text is reviewed and analysed by many 
• quick feedback 

Broad but still effective learning with measurable objectives: 

• many measurable milestones 

• large proportion approved after review process with “minor audit” 

The Wikipedia project features in the course Ecology and health, 15 credits. The project is entering its 10th year and during this time our students have produced new articles or improved existing articles on Wikipedia. There are now over 80 articles in the Swedish Wikipedia written by Linnaeus University students. Some have been named the best-written article of the month. 

Here are some examples of articles that students have written over the years: Antimicrobial peptides, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Cryptosporidium, Trichuris trichiura

Articles of the year 2021 by Lnu students: Beta-methylamino-L-alanine, Nipahvirus, Cowpox, Epstein-Barr virus, Phototoxicity, Alexandrium ostenfeldii, Exotoxin, Borrelia miyamotoi

Debate, round-table discussion or other similar activity with an authentic invited audience. 

Digital stories as an examination form refers to short multimedia stories that combine voice, images and music. Here, the point is the personal approach to the task, for example to relate one’s own upbringing to theories about children’s upbringing conditions or why not critical situations in the professional practice of several different professions. The ability to combine several different media expressions reinforces the knowledge process (text, image and sound). The form is suitable when the student as a subject or actor needs to emerge and aims to deepen reflection and self-understanding in relation to future professional practice. Digital stories have proven to be a powerful tool for depicting and developing professional meetings where the stories can depict war stories in a business around which cases can be examined and also reused. In the use of digital stories, it is important that both teachers and students have a language for, both in the creation of and the reflection on, visual stories that must also be captured by the assessment criteria for the task. 

Support tools 

Here you will find important things to consider about digital storytelling: https://edtechteacher.org/8-steps-to-great-digital-storytelling-from-samantha-on-edudemic/  

Voices about digital storytelling 

”As our study has demonstrated the potential for DST in terms of academic achievement in English as a foreign language classes, instructors and researchers should take confidence in designing a variety of courses with interesting and challenging digital storytelling strategies. With such effort, development of learning behaviors, including academic performance, higher order thinking, and learning motivation, will develop active learners who will be prepared for the sweeping changes of the future.” 

E-portfolio as an examination form is about a collection of a student’s work during the degree program in the form of assignments, films, pictures, projects, sketches, blog posts in many file formats. The e-portfolio is primarily suitable for professional education as well as practical and artistic subjects but can be used in principle by all students and staff. Information in the platform can be downloaded directly from the learning platform, but the student can also upload material from other contexts (external courses, projects, volunteer work, digital certificates, badges, etc.) as proof of competence. Within, for example, art history, a student can show her/his portfolio with sketches, different versions of a work, reflections on the process, films, interviews and finished product for assessment. The student can also gather evidence of soft skills, such as leadership, collaboration, administration, etc. 

With e-portfolio, there are many opportunities to capture special knowledge aspects of vocational learning and to link work-based elements of the education with the academic elements. The e-portfolio is developed throughout the program and accompanies the student after completing their studies and can also be shown to prospective employers. 

Portfolio as a form of examination raises certain complex issues and UKÄ points out in its supervision that for this type of examination it is necessary to clarify in the assessment criteria which parts are to be assessed by the examiner and in which way the examiner is to assess, based on student performance. 

Example of using an e-portfolio 

Today, Linnaeus University does not have a platform for e-portfolio, but here are some examples of how it can be used. 

• Mahara e-portfolio as practice. Video by Nicola Parkin (Flinders University, Australia). Shows how students, teachers and researchers can create their own collections in Mahara. 
• Practical and pedagogical ways to assess your students online. Examples from Irish universities of how eportfolios can be used in assessment and examination. EDEN webinar (4 Nov 2020). 
• Eportfolio-based assessment, Dublin City University 2020 

Voices on e-portfolio 

The new forms of examination with finely divided systems of different tests and assignments can create new problems from a legal security point of view. There are many pedagogical benefits to integrating assessment into teaching, but it can create uncertainty for the student. It is not always obvious to the student when different tasks and interactions with the teacher are included in the examination and when they are not. Documentation can also be a problem. Sometimes a large number of tasks, carried out on different occasions, are documented as a test in the study documentation system. Several programs have introduced a so-called portfolio model, where the student is given the responsibility to collect the information about the various completed steps, in order to be able to ensure the documentation. In a system of this type, the teacher also gets the dual role of teaching and assessing at the same time. (Lund University in Legal Examination, fourth edition). 

A first condition for a legally secure procedure is that it is predictable, which can be ensured through clear and distinct rules for the examination and what is included therein. 

In an essay text, the student gathers thoughts and knowledge within a subject or based on a particular issue. In the essay, the author can test different thoughts that he/she has on the subject, compare with what others have said, agree or think differently. The essay thus stands on two pillars, the scientific (including references) and the personal reasoning. A good essay conveys not only knowledge and new perspectives to the reader, but also asks new questions. 

Multiple choice questions can be difficult to use for in-depth knowledge and thus risk becoming legally uncertain, but used in a well-thought-out way, they work well for diagnostics and mapping or simpler fact-checking. Stress resistance is something we rarely have in our course objectives, so do not fall into the trap of shortening response times. The same applies to tests where you cannot go back in the questions since this can is questionable practice from a knowledge-builing perspective. Multiple choice questions leave no clues as to what students are struggling with or perceive in an alternative way. Feel free to use it as a complement, as a qualification (result note) for a written or oral exam, for a group assignment or as an inventory of misconceptions or knowledge base for a subject area. Quizzes are perceived by students as easy to collaborate / cheat on (see further section on quizzes below). It is an art to construct good multiple-choice questions, so always test the questions on colleagues or students. Here we are easily complacent as so much room for interpretation is left with such stripped-down examination models.

The oral examination has many advantages in terms of legal certainty, time efficiency and clarity. Some misconceptions abound about oral examinations that are often based on a mixture of fair and equivalent examination or that you are not allowed to film or stay alone in rooms with students. The problem of meeting students individually is facilitated by several different aspects when entering Zoom rooms instead of physical rooms. Documentation of calculations, presentations and solutions can, if desired, be used as a basis for the examination. 

The oral examination can increase the number of students who pass the examination during the course (fewer re-examinations as clarifications and clarifications can be linked to the examination). 

The oral examination can advantageously be linked as a grade-based element to the exam (result notation) where the individual’s contribution can be determined with greater certainty. In studies with oral examinations, time savings can be shown in large student groups. In some cases, it can be fairly quickly established that the student masters the topic and so oral assessment can save time. The assessment can also be handed over to others who can use the recording as a basis for the assessment. 

You have the opportunity to create oral examinations both in real time, in Zoom for example and recorded as student presentations, recorded roundtable discussions that the students plan themselves, or video logs. 

Different forms of oral examination can be: 

• presentations of various kinds 
• hearings (of examinations or panel / professional representatives) 
• panel discussions and planned seminars 

Voices on oral examination 

Oral examination is excellent in online education and takes as much time as correcting a written exam. That is the opinion of Göran Manneberg, senior lecturer in physics at KTH in an article in the journal Universitetsläraren (only in Swedish). He has extensive experience of oral examinations. Even with large groups of up to 300 students, the method works as long as one has a large range of questions to choose from for each student. 

You cannot test everything through an oral exam, but the method makes it very difficult to cheat. Another advantage is that the students can get feedback immediately afterwards, something that the students also appreciate. He recommends that you start trying the method with smaller student groups to and then develop further. 

Roleplay is a very useful examination form. The implementation of a role play will also be an important learning element, which is why the student’s preparation can be regarded as a part of the examination that meets the requirements of working life. The purpose of role-playing is as a student to exchange your own perspective for someone else’s. The role must both influence and be influenced by the subject. In the task, the teacher defines the context and the different roles involved, while the participants decide their character’s different decisions and arguments for this. In order to make well-informed decisions that benefit the characters, students need to prepare through research. Through the combination of scientific research and an imaginary assignment, knowledge of different possible consequences within a subject can be represented by the students. It is important to communicate before the examination which parts of the assignment are assessed and on what grounds. 

The possibility of cheating is very limited in roleplay, and you can set up the roleplay in three steps which can include grade-based elements such as some form of individual preparation, participation in the implementation and an individual final reflection that can be included in the test element. Another advantage is the connection to a professional practice that can be made with both the opportunity for different cases and participants from a professional practice. 

The student can prepare a written basis for the examination. Submission of the written basis is a prerequisite for participating in the role play (can be solved as result notes). The student is then assigned a role in a group and allowed to argue orally for a given position (based on the topic of the prepared background material). Oral argumentation takes place in both smaller and larger groups. The groups can, for example, within a given time frame agree on a decision where all or more groups need to compromise. After completing the seminar, the student should reflect on the oral presentation based on, for example, the results of the seminar, information gathered in the background material, expectations of the role play, interaction in group situations, meeting techniques, vocational training where it is included or the future professional role. 

Support tool (MyMoodle) 

• Use the Group function in MyMoodle to give students the opportunity to choose between available opportunities for the roleplay (if given for half class / several groups) 
• Submission box in MyMoodle for the written documentation. Make the box accessible and visible to the Selected Group (ie one box per group) 

• Zoom meeting with prepared breakout rooms for the role-playing game itself. Name the rooms according to available roles and let the students themselves choose rooms according to the role they have been assigned, or randomly enter the rooms. 
• Hand-in box in MyMoodle for Reflection. Make the box accessible and visible to the selected group (ie one box per group) 

The exam can be completed in real time with all students simultaneously or for a period. An exam should not be perceived by the student as something that is tricky (like a puzzle or suchlike) or contains misleading information. The overall purpose of an exam is that it should measure knowledge and skills that can be found in the courses’ learning outcomes and syllabus. 

To make it more difficult for the student to get help from someone, the nature of the questions plays a role and whether the examination is part of a longer process, as it is both more difficult to consult with others for recurring examinations and deviations from the students’ regular repertoire become easier to see. 

Simultaneous examination (hall examination) 

Trying to reproduce the traditional hall exam in a home environment is not practical. But there can of course be several reasons why the exam must take place at a certain time and between certain times. It can be tempting to use the usual fact-checked questions in combination with setting tight time frames, etc. in order to minimize the possibility of using unauthorized aids. The effect is then rather that the stress level increases. If you want fact-checking, it is good to instead think about the questions, go from simple memory tasks to forcing the student to use the facts to be able to answer the question. Alternatively use fewer but more complex questions where facts have been discussed before. One variant is to allow the students to access certain literature (see open book exam below). 

Home exam 

Home exams are suitable for reflecting on complex issues where the course objectives contain skills such as the ability to analyze, synthesize or assess something and but the form is less applicable to factual questions that can easily be checked online (otherwise applies to most forms of examination if monitoring does not take place and aids are not allowed). 

Think about how the students should answer to ensure that they have achieved the goals and how this can be expressed in a question. ie develop criteria for assessment before the questions are constructed (and actually also before the choice of examination form). Based on the question of what does it mean to know X? These assessment criteria must also be communicated to the students at the start of the course and must therefore precede the examination design. 

Home exams have probably been tried by many. At a time when we no longer struggle with the difficulty of getting information and the problem is instead to be able to sift through all the information we can access on the Internet, exams where the student has access to literature are very relevant. The questions can then be made more valid and on a higher level of understanding than the classic ones of simply listing, stating and defining. Such knowledge we have access to in our working life. It is rather the retrieval, application and understanding of facts for various issues and problems that the student should be tested on. This can be done in a realistic way if the student is allowed to bring their textbooks to the exam. 

Is it probable that when the student, later in working life, is given a task by his boss to present something before the next board meeting, he also receives the order: ”You may not look in any book when you make the compilation?” 

Would it not therefore be wise to let parts of the university’s test activities reflect working life’s opportunities to have access to basic facts? 

If you use the submission folder in MyMoodle, the content is automatically checked against Urkund to detect cheating and plagiarism. 

Support tools 

• Upload folder in MyMoodle 
• Ouriginal (Urkund)

Students can create their own quizzes and tests with teachers as facilitators and support. Students need templates and headings to base their tests on as well as assessment criteria, but with training and teacher support, they will be able to both test and provide feedback to each other. The students thus get richer and more varied feedback and the teacher is relieved to some extent. 

A course can also be set up completely didactically so that the students will grapple with concepts and understanding that they will work on gradually until forming exam questions. 

Example 

Guide to student-generated course material by Satish Patel, Umeå University: Student-generated content. Here you will find guides, tools and methods. 

Student Generated Content. Learning objects created by students and for students 

A video log involves skills that are sometimes even examined in essay form. A video log requires the ability of the student to assess relevance often in relation to a task or target group and then take the material from both knowledge of the subject and critical thinking and requires structuring and an overview of complex areas of knowledge. Video logs can be used to reflect, process, review, synthesize, argue and review but of course also present. For the presentation, the assessment criteria can clarify the following requirements for dramaturgy: clarity in both structure and verbal presentation, whether one captures the purpose of the presentation / reflection, if the content is well balanced, if the content corresponds to the purpose, there is an audience focus, creativity and originality. 

Video logs are also more difficult to plagiarize than simple answers to questions. 

As we describe under the theme ”Independent and motivated students”, the students’ opportunities to get an overview of the course and the expectations that come with the studies are a decisive factor in how well the students succeed. With that in mind, you can use an examination or a score of results to help students get an overall picture before they start a course in earnest and this makes it easier for them to follow the course and investigate its various parts (see also the chapter ” Learning as acquisition ”in Teaching as a design science (Laurillard 2012) which describes how to set up a lecture). Otherwise, the student’s deeper investigations risk becoming fragmented. 

One way to help the student get an overview from the start of the course, and increase the homogeneity of the student group (teachers sometimes experience problems with some students already far behind in knowledge and that this makes teaching difficult) can be to start a course with a longer overview lecture covering the entire subject area. After that, the students get a simplified compilation in some form of the entire course (text, lecture, doctoral interview, etc.). Then an overview exam or quiz is given for the entire course. After that, the teaching begins, which is probably much better understood by the students because different elements in the course then end up in the right place in the student’s imaginary world. 

In such a procedure, it is of course highly desirable that all students pass this overview test – otherwise some of the ”point” is lost with the test – but retakes can be arranged relatively immediately or can be done in the form of a shorter seminar that clears up any ambiguities and passes. Later in the course, tests follow in the usual (or different) way. (Inspired by text in Trowald’s Council and ideas for examination at the university in 1997)