Ineffectiveness Of Online Assessment

Assessment is defined as the systematic collection and analysis of information to improve student learning (teaching and learning online, p.36). There are numerous key issues related to online assessment. Among these issues are:
 Ineffectiveness of assessment method employed in online assessment
 The lack in ensuring the validity, reliability, fairness and flexibility
 Authentic of online assessments
 Plagiarism issues
 Other issues to online assessments

Ineffectiveness of assessment method employed in online assessment
Numerous complaints and feedbacks have to noted that the methodology employed during online assessments are not effective as there is a mismatch or misalignment of questions and course content or it does not constructively

The old school of thought may be still prevalent within this community.
 Getting all students to take the assessments at the same time to prevent cheating – this issue is a problem faced by many institutions as it is hard to track students once outside the boundaries of the educational institutions.
 Facilities and incompatible software issues – the software used to design the online assessment must support multiple platforms of networks and during online assessment especially for distance learners, the learners may be using tablets smartphones to complete their assessments. If the online assessment is to be done in a building there should be adequate and reliable computers free from viruses and spyware software for students to use.
For some poorer online students a contingency plan must be made before the implementation of online assessment as some of these students may not have a computer on their own.
 Physical attendance – the preference of physical attendance for online assessment must be reviewed. However, this can eliminate the issue of students being absent during the assessment

Sometimes students may even take the assessments more than once to obtain higher results (as in the case of online quizzes or MCQ) or even get help from external sources. One solution though not feasible is to ask students many questions. This could result in a long time consuming test and only applicable for MCQ. Another way to overcome this issue of fairness is to use biometric scanning software (retinal or voice recognition) within the online assessment portal but this may incur additional costs. Students are then given passwords for the assessment software which can only be received by students once their biometric identification is verified. It is still best to include traditional tests to prevent biases result