Overcoming Online Assessment Challenges in Time of a New Normal: Case Study of Belhadj Bouchaib University

Abstract

When the COVID-19 pandemic started, higher education, like all other industries, was affected. Institutions around the globe have experienced an almost sudden shift to online learning in an effort to slow the spread of the disease. Online learning was a panacea for continuing education during the pandemic, especially in higher education institutions. Conducting assessments online during this time of a new normal poses tremendous challenges for teachers and learners owing to lack of preparation superimposed with the inherent flaws of online assessment. The current study scrutinizes the challenges of online assessment during COVID-19 incident in the Algerian higher education institutions taking Belhadj Bouchaib University as a case study. Online questionnaires were prepared and administered to50 participants. The study focused on the challenges of online assessment in general and academic misconduct in particular. The findings disclosed that the predominant challenges labelled in online assessment were academic misconduct, infrastructure, coverage of learning outcomes, and commitment of students to submit assignments. To attenuate academic misconduct, online presentation was found to be the best approach. Preparing different questions to each student was also found to be a good alternative to control academic honesty breaches. Integrating different assessment methods; for example, report submission with online presentation, aids to reduce academic misconduct since the instructor would have an opportunity to confirm whether the submitted work is the student’s own work or not