Remote assessment

The underlying assessment quality requirements are validity and reliability. 

Validity 

The assessment should cover the learning objectives and learning activities in the course, and nothing more (for more information, see TU Delft assessment manual). 

• If one learning objective cannot be assessed properly in the remote mode, dispensation may be given if that objective (or the underlying final attainment) is tested elsewhere in the programme. However, this has to be approved by the Board of Examiners. [all] 

Reliability 

The grade should reliably represent how well a student masters the learning objectives (for more information, see TU Delft assessment manual).  

Specific points of attention for remote assessment are: 

• Digital exams: Grading should have enough precision. This implies that large questions that are automatically graded as ‘correct’ (all points) or ‘incorrect’ (no points) should be prevented or mitigated, for example by having students explain their calculation method and granting partial points for partially correct answers.  
• Digital exams: Use anonymous grading and grading per question (instead of per student) to prevent bias. 
• Oral authenticity checks for groups should be based on an unbiased sample of students. In individual remote exams, you will do the authenticity check for the individual. 

General points of attention for any assessment are: 

• Strive to be unbiased while assessing, grading, or determining fraud.  
• Instructions in assignments and questions should be clear for students (i.e. they should know the required level of detail of the answer in order to get a full score). 
• Assessors should receive clear grading instructions that should ensure objective assessment, minimize bias and align the grade with the learning objectives and assignment instructions.  

Online proctoring 

Group remote exams: Since online proctoring can only be used as a last resort (also due to the invasiveness), most exams will be converted to open-book and open-internet exams.  

Individual remote exams: Boards of Examiners could allow online proctoring in individual cases if that is the only feasible way (also in terms of lecturer workload). 

Additional fraud prevention measures 

Take sufficient additional fraud prevention measures to reduce the risk, while minimizing the downsides of these measures: your students should still be able to demonstrate how well they master the learning objectives, without being hindered by the fraud prevention measures. In addition, students should not feel the need to commit fraud because they feel well-prepared for the assessment (especially in group-based remote exams).  

Click here for concrete remote fraud prevention measures and their pros and cons. 

Be available during the assessment to resolve possible unclarities in questions/instructions, and for technical issues. You could use the chat function in Ans, conference tools, telephone, email, Brightspace Discussions (downside: requires refreshing the screen to be able to see changes, both for students and you). Ask help from TAs or colleagues if needed.  

Goal: to reduce stress and to reduce the need of students to contact their peers and therefore commit fraud. 

Students should be able to practice with the assessment setting, questions and tool(s), ample time before the assessment day. Do a practice exam 1-2 weeks before the real exam.  

Goal: to test the procedure as well as students’ devices and apps. Furthermore, it will familiarize students (and you) with the procedure, which will diminish stress and improve performance. 

Prevent unnecessary study delay due to failing assessments, and stress for you and your colleagues. 

• Keep the remote assessment as close to the on-campus mode as possible to reduce your time investment for switching to remote (or to on-campus): Consider making your exam an open-book exams.  
• Choose feasible fraud prevention measures. 
• In case of a lockdown: Check for (new) conflicts with deadlines and assessment slots in other courses. 
• The assessment should be feasible to carry out for you and your colleagues. Take into account the construction, the assessment itself and the grading. 

You need to set the exam time-slots yourself in the exam tool, in the case that your remote exam is not supported by Digital Exams. This includes setting elongated timeslots for the students who are entitled to exam elongation (10 extra minutes per hour, see your TER (OER) art. 25).  

• If you registered your scheduled exam for support by Digital Exams, Digital Exams will arrange the settings for you. In case your exam used to be print-scan and you register it for the services of Digital Exams, contact them to help you with the settings. 
  In case of a Möbius exam, Digital Exams will take care of the extra time settings. When starting the exam, students will see two options which they can select: the exam with the regular duration and one with extra time. 
• Click for step-by-step guides on how to organize extra time in Brightspace Assignments using ‘Special Access’. Detailed instructions for quizzes can be found here.  

• Students with other special needs should have enough time to request and discuss special accommodations in case of group-based remote assessment. Special needs provisions are granted by the Board of Examiners. Students can apply for these provisions via the student counsellors. The Boards of Examiners (via the study counsellors) should inform you which provisions need to be available for which student. Lecturers themselves are not allowed to grant these provisions. 

• Use the approved tools from the TU Delft tool list that are compliant with privacy rules and regulations. In case you use other tools while there are suitable tools available on the TU Delft tool list, students have the possibility to refuse to use the tool, in which case you should offer the assessment without the use of this tool to the student. However, this implies extra work for you, so this is advised against. In addition, you will need to adhere to the archiving requirements yourself. 

• In case recordings are made, this should be considered privacy sensitive data, and the recordings should be kept in a safe place and deleted as soon as their existence is not necessary anymore. Click here for guidelines for security and privacy of (recordings of) oral exams.