Abstract:

The current COVID-19 pandemic caused the suspension of face-to-face university teaching activity in most countries around the world. In Spain, with the declaration of the state of alarm by the Government in March 2020, all the teaching activity that was carried out in person was replaced with an online format.

Our aim is to explain in detail the evaluation experience of two undergraduate subjects at a large Spanish public university. Both subjects are taught in the first year and semester of each degree, have 6 credits, and are part of the ‘Basic Training’ of each degree. The ordinary evaluation (January Examination Session) was carried out in person while the extraordinary evaluation (July Examination Session) was conducted online.

In the July Examination Session, two platforms were simultaneously used: Microsoft TEAMS and MOODLE (this latter is the platform used in the Virtual Classroom of the University). Prior to the exam (about one week before), a virtual meeting was arranged through TEAMS with all the students who had to take the exam. The main objective of this meeting was to explain in detail the entire procedure related to the exam. The format of the exam was identical to that of the ordinary evaluation to comply with the requirements of the Teaching Guides and avoid, as far as posible, differences with respect to the ordinary evaluation.

The exam was taken on the official date set by the University. The students had to be connected through TEAMS ten minutes before the time set for its completion to verify that everything was alright and that all of them had their video cameras correctly activated so that the teacher could see them. They also had to have an identification document so that the teacher, in case of doubt, could confirm the identity of each student. When the starting time arrived, the teacher opened the exam through the Virtual Classroom and the students started it. All the options and protocols available on both platforms (MOODLE and TEAMS) were activated to prevent students from being able to copy during the exam.

We conducted a comparative analysis of academic performance obtained in the extraordinary evaluation in three prior academic courses. According to our findings, the experience has been totally satisfactory. No suspicious behaviors were detected to conclude that students copied or passed the information during the exam time. Anyway, a special emphasis is placed on the need to establish credible and dissuasive control measures in the online assessment. Our findings are important because, today, teaching in most universities in Spain continue involving a blend of classroom-based and distance-learning methods and many exams are still conducted online.

Keywords:

COVID-19, online assessment, digital platforms, academic performance.