5 August 2020: Adapting to COVID19 by ignoring proctoring: catalysing alignment of online teaching, learning and assessment

Presenter: Magnus Svendsen Nerheim (University of Bergen, Norway)

This session explored how University of Bergen adapted their assessments under COVID-19 conditions to better align teaching, learning and assessment by building on existing interdisciplinary collaborations and ignoring online proctoring.

Due to historical and cultural reasons, assessment in Norwegian higher education is often strictly separated from teaching, and the alignment between them (and learning) is a lot less than one would like. Since 2015, the University of Bergen had digitized close to all on-campus assessment for final written exams with a BYOD approach, while progress was being made on modernizing assessment practices. When the COVID-19 emergency hit, it presented a new challenge. A possible next step to doing digital examinations in the home context could have been to adopt online proctoring, but this was considered to be unviable in the time available and legal constraints. Not all was bleak. Existing collaboration between EdTech, University Pedagogy and the Faculties were already in place coordinated through the UiB learning lab. This joint work had set out to address issues of quality in teaching, learning and assessment with an ultimate goal of bridging the gap between digital tools and sound pedagogical practice in the context of each faculty. This ground work proved valuable when re-thinking how assessment could be done under COVID conditions with a greater alignment of assessment and learning goals achieved. This session explored this journey and provided examples of the alternative assessments and the strategies that made them possible at University of Bergen.

Further information:

• Slide Set: TA_webinar_5_aug_2020_slides.pdf [7.3MB]
• Magnus's profile page at University of Bergen
• UiB learning lab
• Chat Log (as is): TA_webinar_5_aug_2020_chat_log.txt
• Video 1: "You cant do that here - the Norwegian system" (2 minutes 20 sec).
• Video 2: "Reflections on Alternative assessment methods at UiB" (3 minutes 14 sec).
• Flow chart "so you want to put your exam online?"
• Nerheim et al. 2019 – Assessment policy and guidelines for assessment [pdf]. Fra UU 21.03.19 (in Norwegian)
• Ref: Raaheim et al. 2018 Digital assessment – how does it challenge local practices and national law? A Norwegian case study. European Journal of Higher Education, DOI: 10.1080/21568235.2018.1541420

Session Recording

Blackboard Collaborate archive version.

• View: Session recording in Blackboard Collaborate Ultra version (slide stream, text chat and audio).
• View: Session recording on Youtube (slide stream and audio).