When it comes to course assessment, a general tendency is to create exams and quizzes. But it is important to remember that:

grading and assessment are not the same thing.
course assessment is much more than just exams.

Generally, the goal of grading is to evaluate individual student’s learning and performance. Grades are not always a reliable measure. Sometimes course grades include points for attendance, participation, and effort, etc., that are not direct measures of learning.

The goal of assessment is to improve student learning. Although grading is an important part of assessment, it also involves many ungraded measures of student learning.

https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/assessment/basics/grading-assessment.html

Course assessment is generally divided into three types: assessment FOR learning, assessment OF learning and assessment AS learning.

They all serve distinct purposes and should work together in order to make up a comprehensive or balanced assessment program.

http://www.learnalberta.ca/content/mewa/html/assessment/types.html

Assessments FOR learning are formative evaluations

Assessments FOR learning are often brief, informal, often low-stakes or ungraded. They are administered during the semester to:

provide both the students and instructor with an indicator of where their level of understanding is at the current moment
help student progress toward one or more course or unit learning objectives, and
enable the instructor to adjust accordingly to meet the emerging needs of the class.

These assessments are formative and are particularly important because they allow instructors to reflect on what affects the current students at the current moment and make the changes needed, in other words, to inform and form. The questions instructors usually ask are:

Do I need to re-explain that concept differently?
Do I need to backtrack two steps and catch everyone up to where we are now?
Do I need to change my pedagogical approach to engage this group of students?

Assessments OF learning are summative evaluations

Assessments OF learning are summative and used to evaluate student learning at the end of a unit or course and often determine course grades, or at least carry great value towards that determination.

Summative assessments are most commonly utilized as mid-term or end-of-term exams to determine the level at which students achieved the expectations for their learning as prescribed by the instructor and to identify instructional areas that may need additional attention.

The question that instructors often ask is, “Have my students learned the material that has been taught?”

Using a combination of formative and summative strategies to assess student learning outcomes will yield an accurate measure of what students learn.

Here are a few suggestions:

Provide multiple assessment opportunities in multiple formats.
Allow more time and flexibility to access and complete assessments.
Scaffold with simple to complex, i.e., break big high-value assessments into several smaller ones and build up in difficulty.
Design assessments that are more applied, i.e., focus on how to use new knowledge and skills.
Ask students to show work, e.g., students can use video, images, or hand-written notes to describe the process they used to get to an answer.
Provide clear and concise guidelines of what students need to do to complete assessments.
Communicate clearly to students what technology will be used and what the logistics of the assessment process will be.
Support students who require accommodations.
Provide information about troubleshooting support.