First reflections - online assessment

My first online assessment has been handed in by students. I would be lying to say that I was entirely relaxed about this as it is the first online assessment of this sort that I have written and administered. I've used online testing models in the past (collections of multiple choice or True/False questions as  a source of formative assessment and student practice) but never summative written assessments that are such high stakes.

The assessment was entirely open book, and I took 2 weeks to prepare the boys for the material, in particular to make sure that they were prepared for the depth of thinking that was required.

The assessment tool was GoogleDocs.

For me it was one heck of a risk. Had I written an assessment that required sufficiently deep thinking to mean that copy and paste would not help? Had I briefed the boys sufficiently on the lack of advantage and the ethical issues with copy and paste anyway?

I haven't marked any of the work yet, so can't comment on so many things, but what I have 'sampled' is the boys' responses to the task. I worried that they would find it easy. No, they all responded without a moment's hesitation. It was hard, they said. They had to think, they said. They found that they got things muddled in their thinking, and at times had to work hard to find clarity in their thinking and therefore in their responses.

The big tests will be:

1. The NZQA moderation - did I get the task right, and will I get the marking right?
2. Did the boys genuinely produce their own work in response to the tasks?

So far so good, now for the week of marking.