The experience of introducing secure e-assessment in a South African university first-year foundational ICT networking course

This article illustrates the experience of introducing e-assessment to a foundational ICT networking course for a ‘large’ group of first-year students at a South African Higher Education Institution. The study employed a mix of participatory action research, systems design, and survey (quantitative and qualitative) analysis over an academic year across two semesters. Although much research has been conducted on teaching in ICT, the purposeful pedagogical use of electronic assessment is limited. The results provide insight into the need for ‘extending’ the scholarship of teaching and learning to the scholarship of teaching, learning and assessment. While the research has some limitations in longitudinal and comparison studies, it is useful to students, teaching instructors, lecturers and administrators as it provides key thoughts as guidelines for introducing and using e-assessments as platforms for active learning, and as a basis for future research into the use of e-assessment for high-stake summative assessment.