With the emergence of numerous ad hoc support structures, collective exchange of good practices and peer learning, the Covid-19 pandemic has already triggered change within higher education teaching. However, the educational and societal focus that is now on online teaching and learning has so far only limitedly been put on the question of assessment of student learning - albeit it most often concludes the formal learning and teaching process and is perceived as a part of the course design. With planning and conducting assessments under Covid-19 conditions and online assessment in particular, instructors have largely entered uncharted territory. The project “Empower teachers for remote online assessments in higher education (Remote.EDU)” addresses the currently emerging need of establishing, fostering and promoting online assessments in higher education. With its objectives to support instructors in designing and implementing online assessments as part of their course development and teaching, provide possible technical concepts and to promote online assessments and digitalization within European higher education, it aims to contribute to the community through theory-based, hands-on knowledge and support. The four participating universities enrol a total student body of about 140,000 students, bring various areas of expertise and experience from different European regions to the project and include the number 1 and 2 innovative universities in Europe. Being different in institutional structures and rich in diverse education contexts, Remote.EDU partners form a strong consortium that is well equipped for the tasks within the project. The project revolves around five intellectual outputs that collate existing frameworks and learning taxonomies related to online assessments (IO1), survey the perceptions of students, instructors and administrators on this topic (IO2), develop technical concepts for online assessment (IO3), frame the topic within the context of virtual mobility (IO4), and develops an open online professional development course on online assessment (IO5) based on the generated contents in the previous intellectual outputs. Within these IOs, the methodological approach chosen is a blend of theory-driven desk research, both systematic and narrative in nature, implementation of quantitative surveys at the participating institutions, and a hands-on development approach that is used for the course design, piloting and implementation. Therefore, theory and practice integrate, benefiting one another. The work conducted within Remote.EDU will result in a newly developed framework and taxonomy of online assessment, an evaluation study of the perception of online assessment based in four countries, a tool for developing technical concepts for online assessments, a collated view on virtual mobility and online assessment and an openly accessible online professional development course in English language that individual instructors can participate in or that can be adapted to individual institutions’ needs. Based on these results, impacts are envisaged on the micro level of instructors and their teaching in regard to how online assessments can be designed and integrated into teaching practices, on the meso level of higher education institutions in relation to awareness of online assessments and professional development measures and on the macro level of educational policy as it is concerned with online assessment as part of the functions of higher education and promotion of digitalization. Long-term benefits are expected in line with the three here-mentioned levels, most of all the combination of awareness-raising, hands-on approaches that are applicable according to individual or institutional needs and their translation into established practices of online assessments within European higher education.
The project pursued following overarching objectives: - supporting academic staff in designing (and developing) formative/summative online assessment formats in HE. Reached through PAP framework (IO1), support tool and instrument (IO3, IO4), online course (IO5),OER licence of all materials. - providing practical and applied concepts/tools and new innovative educational methods. Reached through scientifically informed concepts and research (IO1, IO2), support instrument (IO4), implementation checklist and overview pages (IO3), modular online course (IO5), OER licence of all materials. - promoting these formats within the European HE practitioner community. Reached through broad (inter-)national dissemination activities and follow-up strategies. - foster digitalisation in European HE. Awareness increased for online assessments (remote/on-campus, formative/summative) in the context of digital transformation in HEI. The main target group of the project were European HE instructors. Students, administrators and support units were targeted, too, to gather their perspectives and perceptions on the topic, thus acknowledging their impact on acceptance, feasibility and support of the developed assessment formats and suggested practices.
The Covid19 pandemic, digital transformation and internationalisation processes raised the need to rethink the ways in which assessment is conducted. Online assessment created many new possibilities to track students' learning progress or to measure learning success. Online assessment has also particular significance in the context of European collaboration in education. Virtual mobility (VM) has become a key strategic theme in the European HE Area, e.g. with the establishment of VM tracks within the Erasmus Student Exchange. However, online assessments are still often perceived as an inferior emergency solution compared to the conventional formats. Little policy, institutional and individual experience beyond concrete implementations and courses exist on how to conceptualize and implement assessments online. In addition, many instructors lack knowledge, relevant competences, and empirical values to design and implement online assessment scenarios successfully. Thus, to address this need, developing design features, providing materials, tools and support instruments, as well as offering pedagogical concepts for integrating online assessments into (international) teaching practice is essential.