In the Covid era, online and open-book assessments were forced on universities. While this was intended to be a temporary and undesirable measure, several advantages of online, open-book examinations became apparent. These include resource savings as examination papers do not need to be printed, and the ease of sharing the scripts among a team of markers. This research is on appropriate types of questions to include in such examinations. We first discuss a survey of students and staff regarding their experience of online examination during the Covid lockdown. We then consider online, open-book, timed examinations for a first-year mathematics examination, and take-home, open-book, open-internet, untimed but set submission time examination for two higher level applied statistics units. Our experience dictates that such examinations are not only feasible but desirable. In particular, several graduate attributes for the applied statistics units cannot be tested in a traditional, timed, closed-internet examination.
Innovative and Alternative Assessments in Mathematics and Statistics