Insights Gained During COVID-19: Refocusing Laboratory Assessments Online

The COVID-19 pandemic has focused attention to online delivery of teaching and assessment within the higher education sector. This article will reflect on the laboratory assessment of chemistry to undergraduate students on a pharmaceutical science program in the UK. With students prohibited from accessing laboratory environments, associated assessments focused on the interpretation of data and simulating the experience of viewing data produced elsewhere. Aspects to promote the assessment of process skills were included, and it was found that the use of data sets for individual interpretation helped to mitigate oversharing. A purposeful community of inquiry requires further consideration to maximize opportunities for peer collaborative discussions that occur within the laboratory environment.