Alternative assessments are used to determine what students can and cannot do, in contrast to what they do or do not know. (https://ctl.byu.edu/using-alternative-assessments)

•Open Book Examination: an artifact made using any resources you can access, no surprise in the question, often with greater time flexibility, often encouraging student-student interaction.
•Open book exams. Because students can use books and notes, open-book exams encourage students to learn to apply knowledge rather than memorize material. They are usually somewhat less anxiety-provoking than regular tests.

https://cei.umn.edu/support-services/tutorials/integrated-aligned-course-design-course-design-resources/alternative 

What is it? •

An "open book examination" is an assessment method designed in a way that allows students to refer to either class notes and summaries or a “memory aid”, textbooks, or other approved material while answering questions. An open book exam can also mean that students are provided with the exam questions prior to sitting the formal exam or are to complete as a ‘takehome’ exam.

Why use them? •

The main premise for open book exams is that teachers can devise questions that require students to answer in more critical and analytical ways thus encouraging high-order thinking skills in their students; as compared to closed book or traditional exams that tend to encourage rote learning and more superficial application of knowledge. For further details about the teaching and learning philosophy that underpins open book examshttp://www.iiserpune.ac.in/~mohanan/educ/openbook.pdf

What are the pitfalls? •

The main issues that arise when making use of open book exams is that teachers may not know how to develop and devise effective exam questions that require students to apply their knowledge through analysis and critical thinking; and students may be lulled into a false sense of security and fail to properly prepare for an open book exam. Students may falsely assume that the exam will be easy, and they will be able to find all the answers in the textbook or on their memory aid.

Considerations when designing open book exams •

Questions in open book exams need to be devised to assess the interpretation and application of knowledge, comprehension skills, and critical thinking skills rather than only knowledge recall

• Make use of case-based exam questions that require students to apply critical reasoning skills in response to a trigger scenario

• Devise clear and unambiguous questions to limit student confusion and time spent interpreting the question so students can spend their time making use of their textbook or memory aid to effectively answer the questions

• Devise questions that require students to apply and make use of the information from their textbook or notes rather than simply requiring them to locate and re-write this information

• Design your questions and overall exam paper with the learning outcomes in mind i.e. what skills and knowledge are you assessing? Example ways of designing open book exam questions

• Structure your exam questions around problem-based scenarios or real-world cases, requiring students to apply their skills and knowledge to the given problem or scenario

• Provide information or background information on a given topic or area of study

• Present relevant qualitative or quantitative data and then ask students interpretative and application questions – What does the data show? What relevance does this data or does the scenario have in terms of [component of current topic]? What other factors could potentially affect this data? How would you test for these?

• Structure content or topic questions in a way that tests for an ability to apply, analyse, evaluate, create, synthesise, interpret etc.

• When devising questions to probe student understanding, skills and knowledge, the socratic questions and questions reflective of levels and stages of learning may be useful (please see below).

GUIDE CENTRE FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING > ASSESSMENT TASK (https://www.newcastle.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/268980/Open-Book-Exams.pdf)

Assess task activities on basis of Bloom Taxonomy. 

Rubrics

In education, rubrics are a defined set of performance standards. Typically rubrics are laid out in a table with one end being the desired outcome (an example of good work) and the other end being less than desirable (an example of poor work). Students are scored based on how they fall on the continuum of expectations. Rubrics can be graded by the teacher or used as a self assessment by the student. They are a very effective and efficient way to score group projects or cooperative learning activities.

https://info.getadministrate.com/blog/6-alternative-forms-of-student-assessment 

Guidelines for Constructing Alternative Assessments

Define the instructional outcome you want to assess as clearly and unambiguously as possible in terms of both the subject-matter content and the set of skills or operations that a skillful performer would exhibit.

Example: Students will perform five types of Cha Cha steps in correct dance position without error.

Distinguish between those outcomes that can validly be assessed solely by performance assessments and those that can be assessed just as effectively by objective measures.

Students would have a difficult time demonstrating dance steps on paper.

Create tasks that elicit evidence of the student’s ability to perform the targeted skill.

Task: Set aside a block of classroom time for students to dance with a partner, two or three couples at a time. Allow students to dance for at least 2 minutes so they have time to demonstrate all the steps they know. Students should have sufficient time to practice the steps before they are assessed.

Decide what kinds of teacher guidance can be used while still allowing students the freedom to learn and do it their own way.

Students may do the steps in whatever order they would like. Teacher may put the names of the different steps on the board to help students remember them if needed.

Try out the assessment and make revisions as necessary.

Revisions could include giving more detailed instructions and expectations to the students or inviting an assistant to write down dictated comments while the teacher keeps his or her attention on the dancers.