How to assess remote students

This page contains practical information on how to create remote assessments, and it contains links to the TU Delft remote assessment guidelines. This page is only relevant if you need to facilitate individual students who cannot come to campus (see ‘hybrid assessment’), or if many of your students have quarantine obligations or in case of (partial) lockdowns. You need permission to change assessments from on-campus to remote. 

Why and when do I use remote assessment? 

The standard assessment at the TU Delft is an on-campus assessment. However, in some cases you may consider administering your assessments online: 

• To facilitate individual students who cannot come to campus (see ‘hybrid assessment’) 

• In case of large groups of students being unable to come to campus. 

• In the unlikely event of new lockdowns. 

You need permission from your Board of Examiners and programme director to change assessments from on-campus to remote, both for individual and group-based remote assessment.

What steps do I take?

1. Read the eight guidelines for remote assessment.

2. Choose to what extent your assessment needs to be closed-book (and closed-internet)

3. Choose your remote assessment type

4. Choose your remote assessment tools

5. Choose your remote fraud prevention and fraud detection measures 

6. Get permission for your remote assessment

Step 1: Read the eight guidelines for remote assessment.

The guidelines can be found here. They are based on the quality requirements for assessment.  

Step 2: Choose to what extent your assessment needs to be closed-book (and closed-internet)

Use the following scheme to determine how large the changes are that you need to change. Click on the image below for a pdf with links. It answers the following questions: 

1. Do I need a (partially) closed-book (and closed-internet) assessment? 

2. If so, how do I set up a closed-book (and closed-internet) remote assessment? 

3. In general, do I need to change the set-up of my assessment (or can I use the remote version of the on-campus assessment)? 

In case your conclusion is that you need to make large changes that need approval, read step 6. 

Step 3: Choose your remote assessment type

Here is a rough schedule that can help you to determine your remote assessment type. The general advice is to keep the changes small, by preferably switching to the remote version of the on-campus assessment. 

* For written exams, there are multiple possibilities, see running text. 

The schedule above demonstrates frequently chosen changes from on-campus assessment type to remote assessment type. A combination of remote assessment types is also possible. In that case, strive for a spread of deadlines and exams for your course and the other courses that students take. 

Exams 

Remote written exams can be administered in two ways: 

1. as downloadable assignments: During the exam part’s time slot, students download the exam and upload their answers before the deadline, for example, 90 minutes later. Exams can be split into 2-4 parts with each their own time slot. The answers can, for example, be typed word-documents or pdfs, or scanned handwritten answers in pdf format. Uploading and converting documents can take up to 10 minutes per test. Uploading videos is also possible (both for the student and the lecturer). 

2. as a (partly) automatically graded digital exam: you and your team can either manually grade longer questions, which allows for partial grading (giving a student for example 2 out of 5 points for partially correct answers), or use automatically graded questions with short answers. In the latter case, you would have to review the incorrect answers for unforeseen answers which are nevertheless correct. 

Projects and (larger) assignments 

Projects and (larger) assignments can have multiple deliverables and assessment items, like reports, presentations (either live in Virtual Classroom (Bongo) or MS Teams session, or by submitting a recording in Brightspace Assignments), code, or observed skills. Handing in content in Brightspace Assignments with plagiarism check is frequently part of the solution, as well as a (group) presentation via a conference tool. Make sure that you provide students with sufficient supervision and support, not only to support them but also to have insight in whether the delivered work is likely to be their own. 
Depending on your selected remote assessment type (see above), you can choose an assessment tool (see step 4) and choose fraud prevention measures (step 5).  

Step 4: Choose your remote assessment tools

Step 5: Choose your remote fraud prevention and fraud detection measures

You can find an overview of all fraud prevention options on the subpage on fraud prevention, including more detailed information on online proctoring. 

Step 6: Get permission for your remote assessment