Unique Data Sets and Bespoke Laboratory Videos: Teaching and Assessing of Experimental Methods and Data Analysis in a Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated
the move to online teaching
and assessment. This has created challenges in teaching laboratory
skills and producing assessments that are robust and fair. Our solution
was to use bespoke laboratory videos to provide laboratory training
and to generate unique data sets for each student in coursework and
exams. For assessments, R was used to produce student
data packs comprising data and images, and associated staff answer
files with plotted data and worked answers. In the new open-book online
environment, this approach enabled us to create assessments that were
the students’ own work with no evidence of student collusion.
We observed no difference in student performance for the coursework
or exam: The mean and median marks for the course remained the same
as in previous years.