2021 was a significant year for online exams (OLX) at UNE, representing the first year of OLX as our standard business practice. We also saw Time for Change bring the Exams and eAssessment team into the Digital Education portfolio, alongside the Learning Design, Learning Environments and Learning Media teams. While there were still challenging circumstances to navigate, UNE achieved some significant outcomes in the OLX domain. Here are some of the highlights from 2021:
Experience Indicators
Our OLX platform, ProctorU, reports experience indicator statistics for UNE each trimester, and benchmarks them against their global average. Over the course of 2021, UNE saw significant improvement in these indicators, which demonstrate a notable increase in comfort and capability across the board:
- Technical issues reduced from 11.27% in T1 to 8.68% in T2 (ProctorU global average: 11.95%)
- Average start time reduced from 11:55 in T1 to 10:55 in T2 (ProctorU global average: 14:23)
- Active interventions (for academic integrity purposes) reduced from over 20% in T1 to 15.4% in T2 (ProctorU global average: 21.2%)
Design and Development
Bringing Exams and eAssessment into the same portfolio as Learning Design created some key opportunities for taking a curriculum design approach to developing solutions to OLX issues. In 2021, Digital Education partnered with the School of Law to design a new approach to alternative assessments that has successfully addressed a number of issues and improved both the student and staff experience.
Digital Education also launched the OLXi project, which will be a key mechanism for continuing to improve and embed OLX practice across UNE.
Sector Recognition
UNE is recognised as a sector leader in online examinations. Two particular areas have seen recognition from other institutions – locating online examinations as a key component of UNE’s Digital Education landscape rather than an administrative area, and our 24-hour availability window (allowing students to sit examinations at any time of day or night) which is unique in the sector and makes use of the affordances of the online environment to maximise student flexibility.
While there are still challenges in the OLX space, UNE has achieved remarkable success in 2021, and we are looking forward to what 2022 will bring.