The University of Nairobi on Tuesday May 26, 2020 achieved a great milestone of conducting the first online exam ever on Masters students from Centre for Advanced studies in Environmental Law and Policy (CASELAP).
Over 26 students from the Master of Arts in Environmental Law and Master of Arts in Environmental Policy successfully sat for their exams online from the comfort of their homes and the exam lasted 4 hours.
UoN resorted to conducting exams online after a series of senate meeting to find solutions on how to tackle the disruptions brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In a media coverage by a team from different TV stations and UoN’s communications team, Dr. Collins Odote, the Director of the Centre for Advanced studies in Environmental Law and Policy (CASELAP) said, “We used Google platforms to administer our exams-first we invited our students to Google Classroom so that we are able to see all of them and then we used Google Meet to monitor or invigilate the process.”
This online exam was necessitated by dedicated planning and intense weeks of teaching and learning by lecturers and students respectively conducted online using a wide array of eLearning platforms such as Zoom, Webex, and Google Suite. The collaboration with Telkom to offer data bundles to students has also greatly promoted the online teaching. For students with poor connectivity, the University resolved to send to them playback lecture videos and coursework material.
While addressing the quality of the online exams, Prof. Kiama said, “As a World Class university all our examination guidelines and procedures have been benchmarked against the global best practice and we shall continue to ensure that they are reliable, consistent and of integrity.” The exam system automatically locks after the scheduled exam time lapses and there are invigilators supervising the students throughout the exam to avoid cheating cases.
The University of Nairobi celebrates the strides it has made amidst all the challenges being experienced due to the covid-19 pandemic and for the students that come from disadvantaged groups and might not be able to sit for the online exams, the University will address each case as it arises individually.