Authentic assessment during COVID-19: an Australian postgraduate computing degree program example

Abstract

The challenge This case study outlines the challenges faced during the Covid-19 pandemic in relation to transforming assessment design. It focuses on a core study unit with an approximate class size of 300 students in the Master of Information Technology (MIT) degree programme at an Australian university. When the Covid-19 outbreak first affected our education delivery in March 2020, we had little time to plan and transform assessments, instead addressing emergency remote learning (Khlaif, Salha and Kouraichi, 2021). With very short-notice (fewer than two weeks), we were expected to update our unit of study outline, including the redesign of different types, modes, and implementation of assessment. In addition to this challenge, change management was a crucial issue in our micro-level decision-making because we had already published the course outline and were about to start face-to-face delivery of classes and tutorials. We had insufficient information on unit delivery plans and assessment implementation options, including whether to go online for the entire semester or only the first half. About 80% of the students enrolled in the unit of the study were based overseas, and many of them experienced border closures or travel restrictions (Champagne and Granja, 2021) around the beginning of semester one in March 2020. Moreover, it was challenging to decide on the right tools to implement assessments apart from using Canvas (our university's LMS).