Sharing #oralAssignments and #OnlineExam #bestPractices to limit cheating

Request for expertise sharing on #online #exams #covid19 pro-active planning until the end of this academic year and offering #BestPractices for #OnlineExams below. 

The first rumors are indicating that our international HigherEd students will not be requested to come to their guest universities to plan their exams for the end of the 2019-2020 academic year. 

I am trying to find a solid online learning tool that can be used, but in the meanwhile, I want to share best practices that are already used at our and other institutes. Feel free to add any ideas or measures I might have missed when listing our guidelines.

Best practices for organising online exams and online tests All of us working with international students scattered around the globe as they have rejoined their families in their country of origin, will probably be facing online examination needs. With this in mind, I am listing best practices and in a second stage I will be reviewing #EdTech tools that might come in handy if you have multiple students linking up remotely for their exams (we are preparing for 382 students which is a feasible number, yet demands a streamlined approach). I took my master’s in education (M.Ed.) exams remotely myself (thank you @AthabascaUniversity, so sharing those best practices with some additions below. Best practices using only camera and audio as technology: Preparing the exam Switch any written exam questions you might have to oral exam questions. These can include notes that need to be shared (ask contextualized questions, questions that show they understand the material yet can apply it to new contexts; e.g. ask short oral essay questions). Create original exam questions: i.e. questions are not available in educational textbooks (otherwise tech-savvy students will be able to find them in no time :D Choose an online meeting tool that offers recording options (think legal discussions, you need to be able to show why you gave the examination points you gave) and a tool that allows for lengthy recordings at that (no one wants their exam to suddenly stop). Choose a tool that enables sharing the screen (might come in useful for some short essays, designs, stats…). Prepare an informed consent document and send that to the student, so they know their exam will be recorded and stored at the admin server space for X time. If possible, indicate the amount of time set aside for the exam. Make a designated exam folder structured according to your admin. Additionally: you might want to send out a ‘code of conduct’ to the students, so they know what is expected of them. This is where the penalties might be discussed: what is considered cheating, what is the penalty for each stage of cheating… Once the exam starts Introduce the student to the fact that their online session will be recorded (GDPR) – check that the informed consent was signed and sent back to you. Start recording. Indicate the overall guidelines of the exam: open book, closed book, time available, number of questions (if relevant). The student must be made aware of what they can expect. Ask whether they understood what you have just said. Check identity: ask the examinee to show their passport and take a screenshot, save that screenshot as part of the examination administration. Ask them to show their desk, room, and that they need to be in view mid-torso with hands and keyboard visible. (you know why 😊 In case you choose to go with closed book examination: ask them to share their full screen (look at the tabs that are open!). Of course, there is a workaround if they are tech-savvy, which is why exam questions should preferably be open book, it allows them some freedom, yet they still need to really understand how they come to a solution. Only offer one question at the time. Feedback is important… but: depending on the number of questions you prepared, you might want to choose a different feedback strategy. If you have different questions for each student: give feedback as you see fit. If you want to reuse questions: limited feedback is preferable. As we all know, students quickly inform each other on which type of exam questions they got, what the answers or feedback was to what they gave, and what feedback they got. Feedback is given at the end Stop recording and make sure it is in the right folder. What cannot you address in case you work with audio/video tools only? Disabling the right-click button (copying and pasting options, so that students can quickly save questions). A reason to go to tailored questions per student, based on comprehension and creative thinking. Single function add-on tools Use the Respondus Lockdown browser or similar tool to ensure that students cannot look up answers, but yet again, you need to block students looking up answers https://web.respondus.com/he/lockdownbrowser/ A review of more designated tools such as ProctorU, ProctorExam, … will follow.

Free #Horizon2020 report out @educause good inspiration #learning #education

The Horizon 2020 report (58 pages) has been released by @educause on 2 March 2020 and it is an inspiring read for those of us looking at emerging learning designs and techniques. The report covers trends in the social, economical, political, technological and of course higher education realm and new in this report is a nice contextualization of all the different trends and technologies using visual supports. Educause is Northern America based, so most of the examples and projects they refer to are also North-America based.

This report is also more consciously covering multiple scenarios resulting from the interactions between all the different realms of society, which makes it a nuanced reflection of where learning can go in the near future. The report also links to additional reading and complementary material, e.g. articles on micro-credentials and experiential learning, [High on the higher ed agenda: alternative learning and ongoing increase of online education. High on the economic agenda: climate change and the green economy]

Download it now! Why, because it has tons of interesting links with a great synopsis for each subject. See below to get an idea of only a handful of information.

Emphasized learning technologies and practices this year:

• Adaptive Learning Technologies 
• AI/Machine Learning Education Applications 
• Analytics for Student Success 
• Elevation of Instructional Design, Learning Engineering, and UX Design in Pedagogy 
• Open Educational Resources 
• XR (AR/VR/MR/Haptic) Technologies 

Adaptive learning technologies are still hot news, as the search for effective personalized learning is still looking for practical outcomes. One of these listed in the report is the Alchemy tool by UBC (University of British Colombia, Vancouver, Canada). It is described as "Alchemy is a multi-featured online tool that supports teaching and learning in any circumstance that benefits from flexible, scalable, and feedback-rich learning alongside growing learning analytics capabilities." which basically shows where learning/teaching is moving towards in this ever more specialized-topic driven learning world.
Another adaptive example I like is from Deakin University, called the professional literacy suite, where I especially like their focus on digital skills in the first year. Which fits with the demand on data and AI savviness, communication skills.... teach those early on in higher ed curricula.

AI and Machine learning in practice still focus a lot on chatbots (which is basically turn a FAQ into feedback offered by bots). The most interesting option mentioned is the Responsible Operations positioning paper by the worldwide library cooperative (38 pages, great insights) that looks at how AI and ML are embedded in society, and how this changes all parts of society and which research agenda might address these challenges.
And the University of Oklahoma has set up PAIR (a global directory of AI projects in Higher education) ... nice!

The Analytics for Student Success are fairly similar, but the report on Ethics in Learning Analytics (16 pages) by the International Council for open and distance education is a good reference document to keep at close hand.

Elevation of learning design - pedagogy is always of interest to me. In a way, the learning design changes feel as small changes, but with big impact as a growing number of teachers and learning-related professionals are picking up digital learning tools and embedding them into their curriculum to address multiple learning challenges.
Carnegie Melon has an open learning toolbox called OpenSimon (part of the Simon initiative), a great spot to explore tools, techniques, research projects and so on (e.g. the Tetrad project which is an easy visualisation tool for data).

OER: we need more OER, but for those looking for new material, Mason OER metafinder is a great starting point.

XR technologies (extended reality) are increasingly on the rise as just-in-time workplace learning is higher on the agenda of our rapidly changing world. It builds upon prior realizations and needs to simulate emergency actions for students, e.g. augmented reality use for medical students by the University of Leiden, Netherlands.

It is a great read, good to get a fresh perspective on where we are all going.