Table 6 Faculty Qualitative Data

1

Perceptions of Assessment

Challenges

• “Student assessment [online] is a big challenge.”

• Cheating was the biggest problem I had (Arabic)^a

• [I suggest] [a]dopting better and stronger evaluation methods in distance education (Arabic)

• The only real difficulty that we encountered is in the evaluation and tests (Arabic)

2

Cheating

Security measures

• [There is a need to] verify the identity of the students (Arabic)

• A way to avoid fraud [is needed] (Arabic)

• [We need to] develop a method for evaluating students to prevent cases of cheating (Arabic)

Technology

• “Everything was perfect in terms of teaching and curriculum delivery, but parts of the assessment were problematic not because they are problematic but because the university refuses to employ security measures such as using CAMs [cameras] that would make the experience totally different and I, of course, mean better, here.”

• [I suggest] [p]utting more restrictions in the programs to prevent cheating by male and female students (Arabic)

Plagiarism detection

• “I faced difficulty on how to control the amount of plagiarized works as well as grading them fairly. Many would believe that zeros are the cure, but I think that [there] must be other solutions for this ethical issue.”

3

Teacher power, flexibility, & knowledge

Training/ workshops

• “I would recommend workshops for teachers on how to increase homework’s quality and other requirements presented by students.”

Grade changes

• “Testing of writing and speaking skills should be improved by making them more transparent.”

• “[Assessment] should be more flexible in terms of duration and writing our own exams.”

• Give powers to the teacher in evaluating students with what he or she deems appropriate and not limiting the methods of evaluation (Arabic)

• [There is a need to] establish attendance and participation scores to encourage further interaction (Arabic)