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Opinion

Online education, exam and evaluation procedures


Published : 16 May 2021 08:46 PM | Updated : 17 May 2021 12:25 AM

Online education all over the globe has gained momentum due to pandemic. Even least developed countries have to transform from physical teaching-learning process to virtual process due to COVID-19. To maintain social distance and protect students from the pandemic most of the countries are still keeping maximum of the  educational institutions closed. UN (2020) described that in order to mitigate the potentially devastating consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments and stakeholders are encouraged to pursue the following policy responses: suppress transmission of the virus and plan thoroughly for school re-openings; protect education financing and coordinate for impact; build resilient education systems for equitable and sustainable development; reimagine education and accelerate change in teaching and learning. Reportedly, in Bangladesh 5.92m students are at risk of learning loss due to closure of schools.

Change is a continuous process. Baker (2012) demonstrated that the online classroom refers to the virtual learning environment in which students and instructors are separated by distance and like their physical counterparts, online classrooms vary widely. Currently new pedagogy is developing due to online education system. Blended learning system is gradually developing. Online library system should be properly managed with the education system. Teaching system changes and adoption of both faculty and students supported by the IT system is required. To make available to the learners’ community learning resources through a single-window in India, National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT) has sponsored the National Digital Library of India (NDLI) project and arranged funding through Ministry of Education of that country. Content of all languages are available and user interface available in widely used Indian languages. Educational materials are available from primary to postgraduate levels for all subject areas like Technology, Social Science, Literature, Law, Medical, etc. in India.

Use of Multimedia and Open Educational Resources within the framework of the learning objectives, more flexible approaches to content choice, delivery, assessment, and other factors are emerging.  New pedagogy is transforming teaching and learning process for online education system. Faculty, instructors, and teaching and learning specialists in post-secondary institutions are rethinking pedagogy and designing resources, programs and courses that benefit from new approaches to teaching and learning. The purpose is formative, to encourage team through interaction and agreement structure and to grow skills of likeness and mixture.

For instance like other universities of advanced countries, University of Houston-Downtown, Texas, USA is using Blackboard as teaching and learning platform. The platform is consisted of Higher Education solution, Further Education Solutions, Government Solutions, Business Solutions. Curriculum Management Systems: Academic Technology’s Last Frontier moves to the Front Line. Miles(2021) described that” Covid-19 forced everything online virtually overnight.  Unravelling this and deciding on a new mix of course offerings, modes, learning outcomes, assessments, and activities would be well-facilitated by a digitized curriculum management system providing a single source of truth for each current (and past) offering and mode of delivery.” Blackboard claimed that they innovate solutions to support learners as every level, from higher education to professional education, and across every industry, from academia to corporations, from government agencies to non-profits. Chandigarh university, India is also using blackboard platform. Therefore, education sector needs to find out innovative ways of teaching. 

The rubric for e-learning instrument assessment is currently being utilized in two ways: educational developers are using the rubric to review the tools and technologies profiled on the eLearning Toolkit;  shared university’s  rubric with instructors and staff so that they can independently review tools of interest to them.   

Several technical stages remained cast-off for connected knowledge contained at Google meet, Google Classroom, Google Hangout Meet, Live Streaming, Tencent Live Broadcast, Microsoft teams, and Zoom etc. These education tools are obligatory and all instructive personnel must know how to use them efficiently. So, technical inventions aimed at connected knowledge remain advanced for education and knowledge in innovative systematic not only required but need to implied. Li and  Lalani (2020) argued that while countries are at different points in their COVID-19 infection rates, worldwide there are currently more than 1.2 billion children in 186 countries affected by school closures due to the pandemic. 

However, virtual education is nowadays substituting physical education. Though there is some instrumental factor and chance of multitasking creativity may decline but there is no better option then online education. 

Due to financial constraints, students are not able to access the internet, and are devoid of electronic gadgets and laptop, phone or computer or even radio and TV. Those students who have facilities to attend to online classes face barriers in terms of unavailability of physical space, which is equally applicable to teachers who are supposed to conduct online classes from their home.  Sarkar (2020) described that “Slide projectors and television-based classes have been in use since the 1950s. However, one of the first instances of online learning in the world can be traced back to 1960, at the University of Illinois, USA. Though the internet wasn’t invented back then, students began learning from computer terminals that were interlinked to form a network. “Though still online education cannot be fully substituted by physical education but during pandemic online education has become a global necessity. Excessive interface with online education may arrange creative destruction. For arranging the online education, primary requisite is computer and peripherals or at least smart phone and availability of the Internet. Removing digital divide is the necessity to sustain in the global education system.

(To be continued)


Professor Muhammad Mahboob Ali is an expert in the field of Macro and financial economics, entrepreneurial management and ICT, Dhaka School of Economics, Constituent Institution of the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh