As COVID-19 pandemic spreads worldwide, universities and academic institutions were forced to shift their face-to-face education to online learning since spring 2020. This shift was termed “emergency remote education or learning”, caused many distractions to students, and posed many challenges for both assessment and examination systems and practices at our Zhejiang University-University of Edinburgh (ZJU-UoE) Biomedical Science Institute, like other educational institutions worldwide. This necessitated the development of alternative and effective approaches and procedures to teach students, and several changes and adaptions of assessments and examinations at ZJU-UoE institute. In this article, we described the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for student assessment systems and practices at ZJU-UoE Institute. The article is particularly reflecting on alternative approaches and strategies that we have developed at ZJU-UoE institute to change and adapt student assessments and examinations during COVID-19 pandemic. These changes involved developing general examination strategies and settings, including online (MCQ-type) test exam settings and online written exam settings, and developing effective procedure and policy to safeguard academic integrity during the COVID-19 pandemic that can help with facing various education and learning challenges in a time of crisis worldwide.

A survey on food choices with a randomized sample population of individuals using various social media in Nigeria was conducted during the COVID1-19 pandemic. The data generated was subjected to basic standard statistical analysis. The parameters indicated that 94% of the population is young adults, 58.9 % percent are city dwellers, 63.6% are students, 23.4 % are into business, 86.9% are graduates; 73.8% consume various diets, 23.4% are vegetarians and only 2.8% fed only on proteins, 30.8% of them go on two meals per day. The most choices on influence on food purchases decision are hunger (26.2%), mood (26.2%), past experience (45.8%), quality of the food products (66.7%), cost of the food products (50.5%) and government approval (28%). Also,other most preferred choices are for self-prepared food (40.21%), enhanced local diets (36 %), and a blend of foreign and local diets purchases (24%). Other highest choices include: easy preparation (37.4%), shelf life (29%); cute packaging (23.4%), swelling property preference (20.6%), minimal cooking time and energy preference (37.4%). The weighted sum, index and rank on factors influencing food choices showed that the influence of quality of food product ranked highest, followed by influence on cost. Also preference for enhanced local healthy diets to foreign ranked highest, minimal cooking time and energy costs ranked highest. These nutritional adaptations have implications to individuals, food scientists, manufacturers in the food industry, food regulatory agencies, government and other decision bodies.

Digital formative assessments have the features of digital learning environment and can be used by teachers to both empower students’ learning and adapt the next steps in the learning process of their students. They are effective tools that can help lecturers and tutors to both collect and analyze the required information and data for supporting the teaching and learning processes. Importantly, digital formative assessments have been particularly critical during the COVID-19 pandemic due to increased students’ learning outside traditional classrooms, limited face-to-face classes and other students’ learning and assessment difficulties at many educational institutions worldwide. In this article, we describe the essential features and importance of digital formative assessments and their recently developed communication methods. We also discuss the significance of digital formative assessments in measuring students’ learning and skills in times of global crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

After the outbreak of the covid-19 disease in the world of human life, living organisms and their environment were affected in various ways. The outbreak of the covid-19 virus has posed many opportunities and challenges to the world environment. This article aims to investigate the effects of the outbreak of covid-19 disease on the environment. This research has studied the effects of the covid-19 virus on the environment through library and review methods. It has been studied and analyzed in the form of articles and related researches. The results of published sources show that quarantine and the requirement of humans to stay at home to break the covid-19 transmission chain caused the animals to feel safe, move out of their natural territory and into urban and rural areas. Reducing noise and air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions by reducing vehicle traffic and shutting down factories are other positive effects of the covid-19 outbreak that has helped improve air quality and reduce global warming. In addition to these positive effects, reducing conservation activities during the Covid-19 era in some areas has increased habitat destruction and poaching. Increasing household and hospital waste production, increasing the consumption of plastics and disposable materials, and decreasing waste recycling are the negative effects of the covid-19 virus epidemic, which, by destroying resources, puts pressure on the environment. Increased consumption of detergents and disinfectants will have many detrimental effects on the environment. In general, the positive effects of the covid-19 virus on the temporary and short-term environment seem to be small compared to the long-term consequences. Therefore, by overcoming covid-19, we should focus on rebuilding society and a healthy economy, and by fully understanding the opportunities and threats of this virus, we should consciously train environmental behaviors.