Digital learning assessment and online examination
Digital (i.e. electronic) assessment brings flexibility to students’ studies and completion of courses, in addition to saving teaching and administrative staff the time spent on organising on-campus exams. Digital assessment also plays a role in how we are re-evaluating our learning assessment methods.
Digital (i.e. online) assessment enables flexibility in studies, and the possibility to reimagine our assessment methods.
Digital assessment and online examination: how it’s done at Aalto University.
MyCourses includes a variety of assignments and activities that can be used to assess student learning. The most typical ones used for exams are Assignment and Quiz.
The Assignment activity is suitable for different kinds of texts or downloaded files.
The Quiz activity is suitable for different types of questions, such as multiple-choice, arithmetic, or essay.
In MyCourses, you can also use the Turnitin return boxand the Peergrade peer review tool. Turnitin's return box and Peergrade make it possible to give competence assessments anonymously.
Remotely proctored exams in MyCourses
A remotely supervised exam means an exam situation in which the completion of the student's exam is monitored via a real-time remote connection. The student as well as the supervisor must use only programmes and tools that have been approved by Aalto IT.
A remotely proctored exam is one where a student completing the exam is supervised remotely in real time. The student as well as the supervisor must use only programmes and tools approved by Aalto University IT services.
A teacher uses:
- The Microsoft Teams video conferencing tool for proctoring
- The MyCourses exam workspace for creating the exam.
A student uses:
- MyCourses to complete the exam
- Microsoft Teams to confirm their identity.
EXAM is an electronic assessment service that gives students greater flexibility in completing exams and saves teachers and administrator the time they usually spend on organising on-campus exams.
EXAM is a full exam-administration system and is connected to physical exam studios at the campus that are monitored by cameras.
A teacher can uses EXAM to:
- create and schedule exams
- assess student exams.
A student can use EXAM to:
- reserve a personal exam time and a room
- complete an exam.
Turnitin is a tool for preventing plagiarism and enhancing writing skills. In practice, it is a submission box for student papers.
Turnitin checks submitted texts against comparison databases (repositories) for similarity issues and then generates a similarity report. The comparison databases include web pages, student papers and library databases and publications. While the similarity report shows similarities, it does not demonstrate plagiarism per se. The reports have to be interpreted carefully.
Turnitin is also used to give feedback and grades.
The Aalto University Code of Academic Integrity for the rights and responsibilities of students and teachers as regards typical forms of plagiarism, how to handle suspicions of plagiarism, and the possible consequences of plagiarism.
Help and instructions
Teacher’s Handbook
This handbook contains practical information for a teacher on teaching at Aalto University.
Teaching and learning
A landing page for teachers to help them find services and support related to teaching and learning.
Learning assessment at Aalto University
Assessment for learning at Aalto University is a carefully planned pedagogical process which aims to support learning instead of merely measuring it.
