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.