Assessment Strategies for Online Learning: Engagement and Authenticity

From Chapter One: A book on online assessment theory and practice, in particular, has never been more in need. According to the annual Sloan Online Survey, the proportion of chief academic leaders who consider online education to be a critical component of their long-term strategy stands at 63.3 percent in 2015, with 2.8 million students taking all of their higher education instruction at a distance in the fall of 2014 (p. 10), and with more than one in four students (28%) taking some of their courses at a distance, an all-time high in the United States. Distance courses “seem to have become a common part of the course delivery modality for many students." The growth of online education provides the opportunity to migrate the worst aspects of traditional assessment into a new form, or to take an entirely fresh look at the purposes, approaches, and opportunities in assessment in order to keep the “best of” traditional approaches and expand and improve upon them with innovative pedagogical approaches supported by advances in technology.