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This study aims to examine the impact of the transformation of an assessment on students’ performance and perspectives in an English for Academic Purposes course in Hong Kong. The assessment was changed from the traditional pen-and-paper mode to an unproctored online mode.

Using mixed methods, the research team analysed the differences between the assessment performances of those who took the course before the pandemic (n = 664) and those who took it during the pandemic (n = 702). Furthermore, focus group interviews were conducted with seven students regarding their perspectives on the unproctored assessment.

The results revealed that, although there were no major differences in the overall grades of the two groups, students who were assessed online during the pandemic performed significantly better in terms of their English use. Nevertheless, the shift to online assessment had several negative effects on the students.

Previous studies on unproctored online assessments (UOA) were concerned with potential learning quality issues, such as plagiarism and grade inflation. This study, however, provided empirical evidence that high-quality assessment delivery can be provided via UOA if the question types and assessment arrangements are carefully decided.

This study aims to explore disciplinary differences in completing blended learning tasks in an academic literacy course and the feasibility of adopting a blended learning analytics approach to explore disciplinary differences.

Following a learning analytics approach, this study blends data from the learning management system and timetabling arrangements.

Results suggest that online behaviors of design students and accounting students are different in terms of starting day and completion rate. Blending data sources also provides a new perspective to our learning analytics study.

This study is an important contribution to the field because studies on learning analytics with multiple data sources are rare, and most disciplinary studies rely on survey data; students’ actual behaviors are under-explored.

The purpose of this paper is to answer the following questions: On which early alert system suggestions are students more likely to act? What factors drive students’ decisions to act on early alert system recommendations?

This study examined whether students’ behaviour changed after receiving the results of an early alert system (CDR). In the middle of a semester, 423 students with varying levels of English proficiency were invited to try the CDR and complete a questionnaire that asked about their perception of the tool and whether they planned to act on the recommendations they received.

Results suggested that students mainly planned to take the assessment-related recommendations provided through the CDR to improve their assessment performance. Results also suggested that student anxiety and student ability affected the likelihood that students would act on the recommendations.

These findings provide useful insights for early alert system designers to establish a system that generates useful recommendations for students.

The findings of this study contribute to the development of early alert systems. Designers can now realise what suggestions can be effectively offered to students.