The digital world brings with it more and more opportunities to be innovative around assessment. With a variety of digital tools and the pervasive availability of information anywhere anytime, there is a tremendous capacity to creatively employ a diversity of assessment approaches to support and evaluate student learning in higher education. The challenge in a digital world is to harness the possibilities afforded by technology to drive and assess deep learning that prepares graduates for a changing and uncertain future. One widespread method of online assessment used in higher education is online tests. The increase in the use of online tests necessitates an investigation into their role in evaluating twenty-first century learning. This paper draws on the literature to explore the role of online tests in higher education, particularly their relationship to student learning in a digital and changing world, and the issues and challenges they present. We conclude that online tests, when used effectively, can be valuable in the assessment of twenty-first century learning and we synthesise the literature to extract principles for the optimisation of online tests in a digital age.

This paper explores the perceptions of academic staff and students to student cheating behaviours in online exams and other online assessment formats. The research took place at three Australian universities in July and August 2020 during the emergency transition to online learning and assessment in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The study sought to inform decision making about the future of online exams at the participating universities. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected using online surveys. The findings of the study led to seven key observations, most notably the need to redefine the characteristics of academic misconduct to account for changes wrought to examinations in a digital world. The study concludes with lessons learned in relation to enhancing academic integrity in digital examinations and assessments.

The educational inequity that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have experienced in higher education in Australia is replicated in virtual learning spaces, with generic models of online learning design taking little account of cultural factors that impact on learning. To counter this, new approaches to online learning design are needed that consider the experiences of Indigenous people. This article explores culture as a critical element of online learning design that enhances the learning experiences and outcomes of Indigenous people. The study reported in this article was conducted at a regional Australian university and was methodologically situated within an educational design research framework. Data were collected through the narrative method of yarning with 19 Indigenous students enrolled in a range of disciplines. From the data, 10 themes were developed, which guided the design of a learning design model and six preliminary design principles. The study contributes to the gap in the literature on learning design for Indigenous online higher education students. As the model and preliminary design principles are culturally situated at the site of the study, they need testing by educational designers and academics to ascertain their usefulness in other contexts. Implications for policy or practice:• Education developers, academics, and others involved in online learning design should consider the impact of culture when making learning design decisions. • Educational equity for Indigenous learners may be enhanced through the use of the learning design model and preliminary design principles proposed in this article. • Non-Indigenous researchers may consider yarning as an ethical and culturally appropriate method for engaging in research with Indigenous people.

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