Planning and Design of Online Peer Assessment Professional Development Training in Higher Education

Due to the impact of COVID-19 pandemic, universities around the world have been compelled to rethink how they design and implement student assessment strategies. In addition, it has also led to a re-strategizing of how professional development of academics is carried out to mitigate this rethinking endeavor. In response, this work-in-progress paper presents an Open Educational Resource (OER) Professional Development (PD) training plan using the Learning Management System (LMS) known as MOODLE for the University of the South Pacific (USP). The proposed OER, PD training comprises of three modules and is scheduled to go live during the July semester break of 2021 over a three-week period. Module 1 - focuses on understanding the peer assessment strategy, Module 2 - presents a framework for Implementing Online Peer Assessment (OPA) using the MOODLE Workshop Tool and Module 3 - focuses on academics developing an assessment for OPA from their own courses and participating in OPA process. The paper provides considerable insights for Higher Education Institutes (HEI) in planning and designing online PD training on OPA for academics.