TECHNOLOGY GUIDE EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT CENTRE
ONLINE ASSESSMENTS
It seems that more and more people are opting to go online with their tests, quizzes and midterms
these days based on its convenience and environmentally friendly nature. Assessments are graded
automatically and reusable from year to year.
One of the biggest concerns facing instructors today is cheating. There are number of things that can
be done to mitigate these concerns, the most popular option is using question categories (see FAQ
#1). Remember, if you have any questions or would like assistance, the EDC can help you go from
paper-based assessments to an online version.
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The FAQ section will provide answers to some of the most common questions surrounding the
process of going online with assessments.
The How To section will guide you through the necessary steps of going online with assessments
if you desire.
FAQ’s
Q: Is there a way to prevent cheating on online assessments?
A: There are many ways to reduce the risk of students cheating on an assessment:
 Create multiple versions of the same question and randomly select one using question
categories.
 Add a time limit to your assessments, giving students less time to consult outside sources.
 Set the questions to shuffle answers so that the right answer order will differ for each student.
Q: Will my students know how to take the test or have technical problems while trying?
A: For first year students or students not familiar with online testing, we suggest you create a pre-test
to ensure that students are not having troubles or technical issues with the testing software. It’s
important to weed out the main issues before the real test.
Q: What happens if a student is writing an exam and loses their internet connection? Or
purposefully turns off their computer?
A: If a student loses an internet connection or their computer shuts off everything up to that point is
saved. You will just need to override the test setting for that particular student and allow them one
more attempt and adjust the time to reflect the time remaining.
Q: Are students able to go over their exams afterwards to learn from their mistakes or see
comments on a short essay question?
A: Students can see their answers as well as the correct answers after submitting if you enable the
proper settings. You can find more information on how to enable these settings by consulting
“Quizzes” on the instructor technical support site: www.carleton.ca/culearnsupport/instructors.
Q: What happens if a student misses the exam day because of some emergency and has to
write at a later date?
A: You can either:
 Create a copy of the exam and release it at a different date to the select student. This process is
actually relatively easy and is described below under the PMC students section of the How
To’s.
 Or, using user override, you can just override the test settings to open the test for those
particular students.
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TECHNOLOGY GUIDE EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT CENTRE
Q: I have PMC students that need extra time. Can I extend the exam time for a couple of
students?
A: Yes. See the PMC Students section in the How To’s below.
Q: I have 50 questions for a midterm. I want to have cuLearn randomly select 25 from an easy
database of questions, 15 from a medium, and 10 from a hard. Is this possible?
A: To do this, you would have to make three Question Categories in the question bank. Question
Categories lets you select a group of questions and will randomly choose a certain number of
them to be on the assessment. For information on how to do this view the Quizzes section.
Q: Is there a way I can see all the questions I’ve generated?
A: Click the test title and then click “Preview” under the quiz administration
Note: If the quiz contains question categories, preview will not display each possible
question. It will randomly select questions from the question categories and display those.
HOW TO’s
EXPORTING AND IMPORTING QUESTIONS FROM THE QUESTION DATABASE
EXPORT
1. Click question bank on the left side under course administration
2. Click Export
3. Select the format you want the questions be exported as
4. Select the category of questions you’d like to export
5. Click “export category to file”
6. Select the destination for your exported files and click OK.
IMPORT
1. Click question bank under course administration on the left
2. Click Import
3. Select the format of the questions file you want import - cuLearn currently can only import files
with Aiken format or moodle XML format
4. Select the category you’d like to import the questions to
5. Upload the questions file into the box under “Import questions from file”
6. Click import
*If the file has no compatibility issues with cuLearn, you will see a list of questions that will be
imported and a request to confirm that you want import these questions into the question bank.
CREATING CATEGORIES IN THE QUESTION BANK
Question categories allow you to randomly choose one or more questions for a test from a set of
selected questions.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Click question bank on the left side under course administration
Click categories
Under “Add category”, select the parent category for the new category
Type a name for the new category you want to create
Click Add category
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MOVING QUESTIONS TO CATEGORIES IN THE QUESTION BANK
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Click questions under “question bank” on the left side under course administration.
Select the category that the questions currently belong to
Check the little box on left side of the question title
Select the category that you want to move the question to in the box next to “Move to”
Click Move to
PMC STUDENTS
One of the most common problems with online assessments is that Paul Menton Centre students
often require more time than other students. To accommodate this, you can adjust the quiz setting for
those students only using the quiz’s user overrides to accommodate PMC students.
TO RELEASE THE ASSESSMENT TO SELECT STUDENTS:
1. Click the quiz title
2. Click “User overrides” on the left side under quiz administration
3. Click Add user override
4. Select the students you want to release the quiz to
5. You can change the time and date for the open quiz or for the close quiz, time allocated for
the quiz and the number of attempts allowed for those students
6. Click Save
P:613-520-4433
E:[email protected]
O:410 Dunton Tower
W:carleton.ca/edc