Volume Two - Academic Conferences

Abel Nyamapfene
Moodle virtual learning environment and following up on concepts that students found difficult. This is
a marked departure from the traditional approach where the lecturer spent the lecture period going
through lecture material already posted on the virtual learning environment. Whilst earlier student
cohorts could expect to sit passively in lectures, in the interactive approach adopted in this particular
semester students were expected to contribute to class discussions. Specifically, in the authentic
assessments, students had to show the initiative and come up with their own material. This again is at
variance with the traditional approach whereby students are essentially spoon-fed with all the
necessary material. However, since these students are in the minority, this would suggest that most
students would welcome an authentic assessment driven course in which they are expected to
contribute to the information and knowledge needed to do well in the course.
Students also felt that the lecturer was enthusiastic about the subject content and that he was
supportive and helpful (Responses to Question 4 and 9). As pointed out earlier on, Herrington and
Oliver (2000) are of the opinion that for authentic assessment to be optimal, students should feel that
they have ready access to expertise to guide them in their work.
Turning to the assessments themselves (Response to Question 10), seven of the respondents agreed
that assessments were a fair way of testing what was learnt on the module, whilst one student
strongly disagreed. Again, this may suggest that whilst the majority of students are likely to be
comfortable with authentic assessments, there may always be a minority who would tend to disagree.
To really go beyond the tentative statistics presented here, these findings suggest that interpretive
studies comprising interviews and focus groups may be required to shed light on exactly how student
cohorts feel towards authentic assessment.
5. Conclusion
In this paper the Internet was harnessed to enable authentic assessment of computer and networking
security in a second year university level course on communications and networking technologies.
The performance of the student cohort in the authentic assessments as well as in the end-of-course
examination suggests that Internet-enabled authentic assessment is now a viable option for university
level courses. An analysis of end-of-course anonymous student course evaluations suggests that
students appear to be motivated and excited by Internet-enabled authentic assessments. However,
there are still questions which need to be engaged with: For instance, what is the optimal pedagogy
for the Internet-based student-led learning like the one described in this paper? Secondly, in a world
where content is now widely and freely available on the Internet, what should be the nature and extent
of the lecturer’s role in student-led learning? And finally, what is the likely future nature of learning and
teaching in an environment where the lecturer and the student’s own institution are no longer the only
authoritative sources of knowledge and information in the student’s learning environment?
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