Conducting Online Open-Book Examinations: Guidelines for Teachers

Abstract

With more and more Universities and Colleges adopting the Open-book examination system for assessing the learning outcomes of the students as a result of the pandemic situation, there is a need for teachers to understand the process of creating a meaningful Open-book exam. The Open-book examination is a method of testing, usually in an unsupervised environment, that allows students to use textbooks, class notes and other reference material to complete the exam. These exams are conducted to assess a range of competencies but are especially useful for evaluating a student’s ability for higher-order thinking over their ability to recall factual information.