Evaluation of learning at UAH School of Pharmacy during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

Introduction: The problem caused by the COVID-19 pandemic led teachers to use different tools to measure the learning process of students in a socially distanced context. For this reason, during the 2019-20 academic year, the teachers at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Alcal, Spain, had to come up against the challenge of establishing a consistent, systematic and rigorous online evaluation system to screen which students had the competences and skills demanded by current regulations. Method(s) A survey was designed using Google forms and addressed, from the Dean's office, to professors and lecturers of the five undergraduate courses, concerning the type of evaluation tools that they were going to use with the students in order to proceed with a sound evaluation, taking into account that data protection regulations had to be respected, rigorously. Result(s) Doubts were raised about integrity and ethics when carrying out the different online evaluation tests. News appeared in the media and social networks about how to know the correct answers in a questionnaire through its source code, by hiring experts who solve the exams, or doing the activities together using the versatility of social networks that allow simultaneous collective interaction, etc. In this survey, in addition to indicating the number of tests to be performed, the teachers informed the authors about the tools available for use short answer questions, multiple choice tests, essay or interrelated concepts questions with clear evaluation rubrics, reflection on practical cases, open-book exams. Conclusion(s) All teachers learned and adapted quickly to the different assessment tools available on the Blackboard platform according to the characteristics of the course and considered that the pandemic has opened a critical window for innovative technology based-assessment methodologies.