Creating Online Assessments | Removing Online Assessments

Grading Tests | Resetting Assessment Attempts | Viewing Responses

Online assessments fall into two categories: tests and surveys. Surveys can be used to collect information from students in an anonymous manner. The online gradebook will reflect that the survey has been taken and submitted by issuing a check mark next to the student's name. Online tests should be primarily considered self-assessments.

You have no control over the test-taking environment in an online assessment; there is no mechanism for preventing students from sharing answers or consulting outside resources. For this reason, assessments are best used as self-assessments or for asking open-book, free-response questions. 

Creating Online Assessments

To create an online assessment:

1. In the Control Panel under Content Area, click the area in which you want the assessment placed.  Typically, assessments are placed in the Course Documents section. 
2. To add a test, click the Add Test icon at the top of the page.      

To add a survey, select Survey from the drop down menu at the upper right corner and click GO.      

3. To create a new assessment, click the Create button. 

4. In the Survey Information section, type a name for your test and a description which will be visible to students when the assessment is made available.  The name should correspond with the topic, unit or module you are presenting.  An example of a title would be “Module 01 Self-Assessment”.  The description should be a brief clue to students what the assessment is about.  An example of a description for the above assessment would be “Weekly self-assessment quiz, due by Friday, March 26.”
   
5. Type the instructions for the assessment which will be given to students when they begin the assessment.  The instructions should include the date and time the assessment will end, the format of the assessment, how essay answers should be completed, and how the assessment will be graded.  An example of thorough instructions would be:

“The following quiz will be available until Friday, March 26th at midnight, Pacific Time.  It contains 2 multiple choice and 1 essay question.  For the essay question, please use complete sentences.  The essay question will be worth 10 points: 5 for format and 5 for your answer.  The total point value for this quiz is 30.  Good luck!”

6. Click the Submit button at the lower right of the page.
   
7. In the next screen, you will be able to adjust the settings for the assessment by clicking the Creation Settings button.

   The following settings can be determined before you begin adding questions:

   
   
   
8. When you’ve determined your settings, click the Submit button at the lower right of the page and click OK
   
9. You are now ready to start adding questions to your quiz.  It is a good idea to compose the quiz offline before adding them to the Online Learning System.  Typically, assessments are created in Microsoft Word, then cut and pasted to the appropriate areas within the Test Manager.  There are a variety of question types available within the Test Manager. 
   
10. Select the type of question you wish to add, and click GO. 
    
    
    
    Note: The "From Question Pool or Assessment" option allows you to take questions from a previous assessment or out of a question pool created using the Pool Manager in the Control Panel.  For more details on how to use this option, please contact us.
    
11. Fill in the information for the question and answer possibilities. For a test, make sure you specify a correct answer.  For a survey, you will not specify a correct answer.
    
12. If you have not specified the default point value in the Creation Setting section, you must do that as well.  *(not available for surveys)*
    
13. When you are done filling out the information for the question and answers, scroll down and click the Submit button at the lower right of the page.
    
14. Repeat steps 10 – 13 until all questions have been added.  When the last question has been added, click OK.
    
15. Next, select the assessment you just created, click the Submit button at the lower right of the page and click OK.
    
    
    
16. Under Modify Test, choose Modify the test options.
    
    
    
17. Under Test Information, you may choose to have the assessment open in a new browser window.  To do this, click the Yes button next to Open Test in new window.
    
18. In the Test Availability section, choose to make the link visible. 
    
    
    
    You may also choose to have the Online Learning system automatically generate an announcement informing students of the test availability.  Because it is impossible to control the test-taking environment, you may also choose to allow students to take the exam more than once.  It is not recommended that you choose the Force Completion option or set a time limit.  It is also not recommended that you choose to allow students to take Surveys multiple times.  It will skew the results.
    
19. You may also choose to set a date range in which the assessment will be made available.  If you use these options, be sure to inform your students of the availability date and time.  If you choose NOT to use these options, be sure the boxes have been un-checked.
    
    
    
20. Select how you would like feedback displayed.  You may choose to have the score only, detailed results, correct answers or all of the above.  For surveys, the first two options only are available.
    
    
    
21. In the next section, you may choose how you would like each question displayed.  You may choose to have all questions displayed at once or one at a time.  If you choose to display questions one at a time, you may also choose to limit backtracking to questions that have already been answered.  Another option you have is to randomize the questions.  This displays the questions in different order for different users.
    
    
    
22. When you have made your selections, click the Submit button at the lower right of the page and click OK.  Your online assessment has been successfully created.
    

Removing Online Assessments

Removing an online assessment that has been made available to students may cause problems within your online class and, therefore, is not recommended.  Removing an assessment may create errors in your gradebook, which in turn may cause problems with students’ grades.  Additionally, if you want to make the assessment available after removing it, you are required to re-create the assessment.  Therefore, simply making the assessment unavailable to students is strongly recommended over removing the assessment.

However, if you choose to remove an online assessment, follow these steps:

Grading Tests

The online assessment tool grades tests automatically, except for short answer/essay questions. For tests that have short answer/essay questions, users will see  in the online gradebook until points are assigned for those questions. In addition to assigning points for short answer/essay questions, it is also possible to change grades that have been automatically scored. To assign or change points:

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Resetting Assessment Attempts

When making an assessment available, you can specify whether students can take the assessment multiple times. When you only allow one attempt, it is occasionally necessary to reset that student's attempt because they did not click the Submit button after entering their responses, or there was a grading error by the server. In these cases, their gradebook score will look like or . To reset an assessment attempt:

Viewing Responses

You can view individual student responses to test items by clicking on the score as if you were grading that test.

To view the results of survey responses:

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