3 November 2021: Digital Equity in Online Assessment

Presenters: Joanna Tai and Sarah Lambert (Deakin University, Australia)

The COVID19 pandemic has seen a rapid increase in the use of online assessment in higher education. This has bought both bad and good, from increased concerns about academic integrity to increased flexibility for students. However the impact on equity and access has seen less attention in the rush to put assessment online. Now that we have had nearly two years of pandemic mode teaching the full impacts are becoming apparent. In this session each presenter spoke about the research they have undertaken in the area of digital equity and how that plays out with respect to online assessment.

The speaker presentations:

1) "Considerations for online assessment design with digital equity in mind" by Joanna Tai.

Jo explored a recently completed NCSEHE project on Re-imagining Exams, as well as ongoing work at Deakin University that aimsed to outline common assessment design concerns. Some examples of how tensions could be balanced towards the aim of digital equity were provided.

2) "Equity concerns with online exam proctoring" by Sarah Lambert.

A review of the impact of online proctoring on student performance, equity and wellbeing including a look at students campaigns against online proctoring in the US, and what we can learn from this locally.

Further information:

• Slide Set: TA_webinar_3_nov_2021_slides.pdf [2.3 MB] (including references and links)
• Joanna Tai (Deakin Uni), Twitter: @DrJoannaT.
• Sarah Lambert (Deakin Uni), Twitter: @SarahLambertOz.
• Chat Log (edited for typos) including shared links: TA_webinar_3_nov_2021_chat_log.txt

Session Recording

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