Empower teachers for remote online assessments in higher education Erasmus Project

Project Title

Empower teachers for remote online assessments in higher education

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Partnerships for Digital Education Readiness

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Open and distance learning; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Pedagogy and didactics

Project Summary

With the emergence of numerous ad hoc support structures, collective exchange of good practices and peer learning, the Covid-19 pandemic has already triggered change within higher education teaching. However, the educational and societal focus that is now on online teaching and learning has so far only limitedly been put on the question of assessment of student learning – albeit it most often concludes the formal learning and teaching process and is perceived as a part of the course design. With planning and conducting assessments under Covid-19 conditions and online assessment in particular, instructors have largely entered uncharted territory. The project “Empower teachers for remote online assessments in higher education (Remote.EDU)” addresses the currently emerging need of establishing, fostering and promoting online assessments in higher education. With its objectives to support instructors in designing and implementing online assessments as part of their course development and teaching, provide possible technical concepts and to promote online assessments and digitalization within European higher education, it aims to contribute to the community through theory-based, hands-on knowledge and support.
The four participating universities enrol a total student body of about 140,000 students, bring various areas of expertise and experience from different European regions to the project and include the number 1 and 2 innovative universities in Europe. Being different in institutional structures and rich in diverse education contexts, Remote.EDU partners form a strong consortium that is well equipped for the tasks within the project.
The project revolves around five intellectual outputs that collate existing frameworks and learning taxonomies related to online assessments (IO1), survey the perceptions of students, instructors and administrators on this topic (IO2), develop technical concepts for online assessment (IO3), frame the topic within the context of virtual mobility (IO4), and develops an open online professional development course on online assessment (IO5) based on the generated contents in the previous intellectual outputs. Within these IOs, the methodological approach chosen is a blend of theory-driven desk research, both systematic and narrative in nature, implementation of quantitative surveys at the participating institutions, and a hands-on development approach that is used for the course design, piloting and implementation. Therefore, theory and practice integrate, benefiting one another.
The work conducted within Remote.EDU will result in a newly developed framework and taxonomy of online assessment, an evaluation study of the perception of online assessment based in four countries, a tool for developing technical concepts for online assessments, a collated view on virtual mobility and online assessment and an openly accessible online professional development course in English language that individual instructors can participate in or that can be adapted to individual institutions’ needs. Based on these results, impacts are envisaged on the micro level of instructors and their teaching in regard to how online assessments can be designed and integrated into teaching practices, on the meso level of higher education institutions in relation to awareness of online assessments and professional development measures and on the macro level of educational policy as it is concerned with online assessment as part of the functions of higher education and promotion of digitalization. Long-term benefits are expected in line with the three here-mentioned levels, most of all the combination of awareness-raising, hands-on approaches that are applicable according to individual or institutional needs and their translation into established practices of online assessments within European higher education.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 270534 Eur

Project Coordinator

FRIEDRICH-ALEXANDER-UNIVERSITÄT ERLANGEN-NÜRNBERG & Country: DE

Project Partners

• UNIVERSIDAD DE LLEIDA
• MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
• KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN