Improving the online assessment in higher education with a trustworthy system based on authorship and authentication.

Higher education institutions are reluctant to conduct all assessments online. For that reason, on-site exams are still being implemented as the most reliable instrument for identifying students and ensuring the authorship of their activities. Previous work demonstrates that there is still a need for developing and testing a system for supporting trustworthy e-assessment processes. This paper presents an e-assessment system prototype to ensure the identity of online learners, the authorship of learning activities, and the integrity and non-repudiation of these activities by combining technological and educational enhancements in online education. For developing the research, an Action Research methodology was followed. It aims to study and resolve significant educational problems based on several pilots' cyclical design, testing, and improvement processes. Five courses with 198 learners were involved in pilot 1, while ten courses and 240 learners were in pilot 2. Results show that the system provides more confidence about the learners' identity and the authorship of the assessment activities in an online learning environment. The system contains all mechanisms for a trustworthy and secure e-assessment process, and the deployment and running processes worked properly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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