ASSES vl: an Algerian Scalable and Simple-To-Use Exam-generation System

The WHO¹ officially estimated on March 11, 2020, that COVID-19 can be qualified as a pandemic. Since the closure of the Algerian University on March 12, 2020, administrators from the Ministry of Higher Education have been working on the issue to find solutions regarding the continuation of teaching activities and also on the most appropriate way to resume teaching after the official summer holidays. The problem of distance evaluation is also mentioned, as a factor hindering digital pedagogy. The paper attempts to stop restricting assessment to face-to-face examination only. Online assessment is also a means of continuous knowledge control. What evaluation method shall we be converging towards for examinations and competitions? The main thing is that the student must be informed in advance (by means of a syllabus) of the chosen evaluation methods. This study discusses issues related to examination and assessments at the University of Oran 1 Ahmed Ben Bella (Algeria). Based on a survey, it exposes the main problems facing the examination process, and suggests guidelines and best-practices for writing suitable exams that take students' preferences into consideration. This study also proposes a web-based exam generation system that generates printable papers and online exams from a questions bank.