Assessing remotely (E-Assessment)

By: Dr Zainab Al-Ajmi

zeinbf@moe.om

After the educational system in the Sultanate of Oman was transformed into an e-learning framework, a review of the inputs, processes and outputs of this new system is required. All around the world, when educational institutions moved their classes online during the COVID-19 pandemic, activities, applications and programmes in teaching and distance learning have largely changed as a result. Consequently, the student assessment process needs to be fairly and obviously revised in this form of remote teaching.

E -learning has grown significantly, especially in educational institution by given the advent of distance learning, online teaching and virtual universities, thus, the e-assessment has taken a prominent place in effective teaching and meeting the learners’ educational needs, which extremely requires the regular processing programmes of the learning assessment has been change especially the self-evaluation of the learner. There are three classifications of assessment: assessment for learning, assessment as learning and assessment of learning. In assessment for learning, current situation is assessed.

This type of assessment actually provides teachers with the obvious progress of their students’ learning in the light of their needs and their teaching pattern. Assessment as learning, in contrast, helps students to become active in the process of assessing their learning and to create associative relationships between what they are learning and their previous knowledge. As a result, the knowledge they acquire becomes meaningful for the learner. In assessment of learning, the aim is to find out the academic achievement as indicated by the final product of the students’ assessment process.

Hence, the assessment has been a paradigm shift, and unlike traditional assessments such as homework, essays and multiple-choice (MCQ), remote assessments include a realistic assessment of students’ achievement through portfolios, self-assessment, peer-assessment and project-based assessment. According to Sattar (2020, 15, 17), projects and independent or jigsaw puzzles are trusted as the most effective assessment tools for distance learning. In addition, “the effective Online Assessment it takes one of two forms: Real-world assessment which requiring students to engage in actual situations in their field, and the realistic assessment which relevant in nature, yet students engage in situations that mimic the real world”.

To sum up, E-assessment in present decade has played a pivotal role in the schools and universities, since all studies enumerates the advantages of e-assessment such as: “Increased motivation for students through the use of media-rich elements in assessment, support for preferences in different learning styles and assessment approaches, and Immediate feedback to students”. The educators should be changing their traditional learning style and assessment tools to suit the subjects’ content and outcomes by designing an affective online tools.

This new framework of evaluation enhancing the wellbeing of students and should not stress students, to ensure that the learner becomes an interactive character in the self -assessment process.