## 5 Conclusions  
During 2020 and 2021, the health emergency caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic and academic performance constituted one of the greatest educational challenges in history. Universities and schools could not do on-site exams, which were the only modalities foreseen throughout the world. Even many online degrees in Spain tended to have classroom evaluations, forcing remote learning institutions such as the _Alfonso X the Wise University_ to invest heavily in evaluation rooms; the on-site exam was the only reliable way to go. Given the dramatic situation in spring 2020 in Spain, universities opted for a wide range of measures with inconsistent results. Some swapped exams for papers submitted asynchronously, others preferred practical exams conducted synchronously, and yet others merely did the on-site exam remotely. Online exam-based evaluation, however, is qualitatively distinct from on-site exam-based evaluation, and it requires technologies and software which can substitute direct human proctoring while guaranteeing fairness and equality for all students. As a result, many institutions obtained adulterated or disappointing results. The _Alfonso X the Wise University_ made use of _Respondus Monitor_ to meet this challenge, based on their experience and quality, and this study bears witness to the adequacy of this decision. The main conclusion of this study is that online assessment, if done in conditions that avoid fraud and that are accessible for students, is as legitimate as on-site assessment. In fact, in given circumstances, it is even preferable--in the case of the _Online Master's Degree in Secondary Teacher Training_ in the _Alfonso X the Wise University_, which has many students from all over the country. Online assessment allows many students to take the exams regardless of their location. This conclusion is borne out by the fact that a 10% increase in grades is still consistent with a very stable and reliable evaluation process, both for instructors and students. Grade distribution is based on performance and individual grade differences are in line with the on-site assessment of the different courses. It can thus be inferred, based on the interindividual consistency of the results and between the different subjects, that the grade improvement is not due to the methodology itself, but rather to the circumstances surrounding the process which led to the creation of exams that were significantly easier. The contents evaluated were the same and the structure of the exam and its duration were similar, as well. For most of the students, the perception of justice and difficulty of the assessment was exactly the same as the past experiences with the face-to-face assessment format. The lack of experience of teachers in creating online exams could explain this, as well as an initial position of mistrust for both students and instructors. These particulars, however, will disappear as this system is repeated in different calls, probably resulting in a diminishing difference that some minor monitoring of exam designs by teachers in upcoming calls would solve. This pioneering experience of online synchronous evaluation of students results in initial anticipatory stress which sharply descends as the exam begins. The perceived stress is, at least, the same as that of an on-site exam, despite the video recording in their personal space and the intrusion into the privacy of their home, since 54.2% of those surveyed believed it so. Of the other respondents, most believed classroom evaluation was more stressful than remote evaluation, three times more than those who believe the opposite. In addition, student perception of difficulty and fairness indicates that 75% of the sample believe there is no difference between on-site and online. Finally, the data provided leads to the conclusion that online exams have facilitated the task of grading large quantities of students in a short time.