Implementing Online Marking at Tertiary Level: Lecturers’ Reactions

Abstract

The advent of information and communication technology brings with it new ways of performing lecturer roles in higher educational institutions. At Zimbabwe Open University (ZOU), among the new ways lecturers have to perform their assessment roles, has been the use of e-marking. In its 2017 Strategic Plan, ZOU proposed that all students studying master’s degree programmes were to submit all coursework online starting from the first semester in 2017. E-marking was introduced for the marking of all assignments in the teacher development department in the second semester of 2017. Lecturers were apprehensive of the large-scale innovation and feared it would not be successful for there were some challenges the lecturers envisaged. A case study was conducted to investigate challenges faced by ZOU lecturers in the teacher development department at the Midlands regional campus at the time e-marking of assignments was initially introduced. Employing convenience sampling, sixteen lecturers who took part in the initial e-marking of assignments during the second semester of 2017 were selected, interviewed and requested to complete an open-ended questionnaire sent to each one of them via e-mail. Data were analysed thematically. The study established that e-marking of assignments was painstakingly slow and posed a health hazard to markers’ eyes. These challenges caused lecturers to fail  to meet assignment marking deadlines. Lecturers failed to deal with cases of plagiarism, and lecturers experienced rising workloads due to the introduction of e-marking assignments. The study recommends thorough and comprehensive empowering of lecturers at the face of any innovation and ZOU to provide tutorials to students on assignment submission to ease the work of lecturers in e-marking. Further studies can be carried out in other regional campuses at ZOU.