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Classes on Screen

University students in Hong Kong express their views on

online teaching arrangement amid the COVID-19 outbreak

By Eve Lee in Seoul & Linn Wu in Taipei

ary schools, primary schools, and Sanghyun, 25, a South Korean stu- Chinese University of Hong Kong
even kindergartens as a means of dent studying the Master of Philoso- (CUHK), prepared multiple sets of
education amid the COVID-19 out- phy programme in Electronic and questions for two of his courses in
break. Based on the experience of Computer Engineering at HKUST, the first term of 2019/2020 school
e-learning, Shin notes online teach- took his online examination on Feb- year.
ing is not as effective as physical ruary 18. “The questions had different nu-
class meetings. She also adds virtual Jeon has con- merical values and configurations
classes miss out on “the connections cern over fair- so that the difficulty level was
and the unique campus memories” ness in assess- more or less the same, and the
of physical classes. ment. “I heard diffrences (of each set) were very
Shin is not the only student feel- students actively minor to be detected,” Ho shares.
ing unhappy with the online teach- exchanged mes- “Time allowed for the online
ing arrangement. sages (with instant exam was barely sufficient (even)
messaging tools)dur- if the students well understood the
Fair Assessment? ing online examinations,” Marco Ho course material and were well pre-
On January 30, HKUST an- he notes. pared,” he continues.
nounced final examinations of the In a bid to combat cheating, Mar- “That means if the students try to
first term would be conducted on- co Ho, lecturer of the Department collaborate and work on the exam
line from February 17 to 22. Jeon of Information Engineering at the together, they will not have enough