Tests on BlackBoard 8.0 Creating Quizzes and Exams (10 questions or less) •
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Select the course and go to the Control Panel Under Assessment, select Test Manager •
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Click on “Add Test” Add the Name of the test; a short Description (optional) and Instructions Click Submit Add Questions to Test Canvas Click Creation Settings before creating a question. Settings made will affect all questions. •
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Click on Creation settings and make selections to affect all questions created Using the down arrow on Add, select the type of question you want to insert and click “Go” Type the question, the point value and select options and answers (be sure to indicate number of answers for each question and identify the correct answer). Creating Quizzes or Exams (more than 10 questions): You can also create exam questions in Word, convert the questions for BlackBoard and upload the questions to a test or question pool. Please refer to the CTL instructions on “BlackBoard Test Development in Word.” Creating Test Questions for Bb upload.doc 1 Deploying Quizzes and Exams: •
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Once a quiz or exam is created in TEST MANAGER, you will need to link the exam to the course content area. Once you have decided where you want to post the quiz, go into “Edit View” and click Add the test you had previously created; Click Submit; then OK Click Modify the Test to change the test questions, points possible or instructions for the test Click Modify the Test Options to modify: 1. Test Information – this is the information seen by the students prior to starting the exam. The section includes the Name of test and Description. You can also check the “Open in a New Window” button to display the test in a new window outside the BlackBoard shell. This will give the student a better view of each question. 2. Test Availability Do NOT check Force Completion •
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Availability: Enable the availability option to make the test link available. Students will not be able to see the test until you enable this option. If you use Display Dates, you’ll still set this to available. Announcement: If you choose to add a new announcement for the test, be aware that a generic announcement is created but you can customize it. Alternately, create your own announcement with a course link to the exam (through Control Panel) Multiple Attempts: This option is especially helpful when you want students to master the content. You can choose in the Gradebook whether to keep the best score, last score, an average of all attempts, etc. Force Completion: DO NOT USE FORCE COMPLETION. Timer: If you choose the “set timer” option, Blackboard will note in the instructions how long the test timer will be and that students will see a 1‐minute warning. A student can continue taking the exam beyond the set time limit; however, you will be able to see on the student’s exam how many minutes/seconds over the designated time the student took prior to submitting his/her answers. This will be noted in the “Grade Center” with a green exclamation point. Instructors must “Modify Attempt” in the 2 •
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student’s Grade Details (see Grade Center info) to see the extended time and to make modifications to point values as necessary prior to final submission and grade record. Display Dates: The display after/until options allow you to time when the test link will be available to students. If you choose to use this option when teaching a class online, be sure to keep the window open for at least 24 to 48 hours and let students know well in advance when the test will be available so they can contact you if there is a scheduling conflict. If you will be testing students in a traditional course, you may still want to use a window of time. Either way, try to stagger the times when students actually start the test; Blackboard’s testing feature can be overstressed when more than, say, 10 students start a test in the exact same minute. Password: This may be more helpful in small group settings where a certain group of students are taking the test. It is also helpful when administering in‐class only tests to help prevent cheating. 3. Self‐Assessment Options 4. Test Feedback •
Self‐assessment: Many students, especially adult learners, appreciate opportunities to •
gain confidence in what they are learning. If the exam is a “self‐check” for understanding (which may or may not count toward the final course grade) or contains questions you want students to master, consider using the Multiple Attempts option. Uncheck the option to “Include this test in Gradebook score calculations” if you do not want the self‐check quiz to count toward the final course grade. If you choose to also “Hide the score,” it will truly be hidden from you. Feedback: Each feedback option is mutually exclusive and can be selected independently of the others. It is a good idea to select “score”, “Submitted answers” and “Correct answers” during in class quizzes for instant feedback to the student. If you include essay questions on the test, be aware that because essay questions must be graded manually, a score will not be reported back to students even if the Score feedback option is selected. 5. Test Presentation: 3 •
All at Once: All of the questions appear on one Web page. Each question has a Save button so students can periodically save their answers, or they may choose to scroll down to the bottom of the page periodically to click the Save button there. Doing so should help protect students in case of technical difficulties. All at Once is good for tests with less than 25 multiple choice questions. NOTES: Consider creating a separate exam for essay questions since answers to these questions can take a considerable amount of time to answer. Suggest that students compose answers to essay questions in a Rich Text Editor such as Wordpad or Notepad and then copy/paste their answers into Blackboard. Caution students to wait for all questions to load before beginning to answer. We also recommend that you advise students to disable the Visual Text Box Editor before taking a test, as it can sometimes cause excessively slow scrolling. [In the welcome screen, click on “Personal Information”; Click “Set Visual Text Box Editor Options”, Set Availability to “Unavailable”; Click SUBMIT. •
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One at a Time: Questions appear one by one as students click a forward arrow. The advantage to this option is that clicking the arrow automatically saves each question as students advance, but this type of test takes more time to complete because the answers to each question are submitted individually. You may want to inform students about using the Question Completion Status; they may keep track of which questions they have answered by clicking the small, upside down triangle immediately below the test instructions. Prohibit Backtracking: This is yet another option you may use to help prevent cheating. Randomizing: This is best used in a lab setting or when you are using Multiple Attempts. Each attempt displays questions in a randomized order; however, do not use this option if you have questions that build on one another or if one or more questions depends on previously asked questions. 6. Hints for minimizing cheating •
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Include a password that is given out at the time of the exam Prohibit Backtracking Prevent printing by adding <style type="text/css">@media print {BODY
{display:none} }</style> to the html view (< >) under instructions for the exam. Click this for html view
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Have students connect to the Internet using their Ethernet cable (wireless will work, but Ethernet may work better) Students can use Internet Explorer or Mozilla FireFox (the timer issue has been fixed with Internet Explorer) to connect to BlackBoard Give time (a couple of minutes or so) for students to log into BlackBoard: http://lmunet.centertech.com/ You can set a password for the test and make the test available on BlackBoard a few minutes prior to start time. At the start time for the test, you can provide the password to the students. This will ensure that everyone starts around the same time. Keep the password simple. Since your test is NOT set to force completion, if a student experiences a technical glitch and get kicked off for some reason, they can just go back into the test the same way they entered and finish the test. The timer will continue until they “SUBMIT” Although timers may be set on your test, it is important to note that BlackBoard will not force students to finish. They will have an elapse time on the screen. At completion time, they must SUBMIT (emphasize this to them). Also, after the test, you can always go back to the Grade Center to see if any students went over time. This will be noted by a green exclamation point on the student’s grade in the GRADE CENTER. GRADE CENTER 1. Review quiz and assignment grades/attempts in BlackBoard: • Go to: http://lmunet.centertech.com/ • Click on your course • Click on “Control Panel” • Under the Assessment box, click on “Grade Center” • When the Grade Center is finished loading, use the scroll bars (up and down) to see student grades for each assignment. Click on the name of the assignment in the green section to sort by highest and lowest grade. This will enable you to see who is missing. 2.
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To View attempts (answers given to quizzes or essays) or to insert manual grades: Place your mouse over the box next to the student and under the assignment to review Click on the double arrow that appears and choose “Grade Details” Scroll down to Attempts 5 •
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To view answers or assignments submitted, click on View Attempts To clear an attempt to allow the student to re‐submit, click on Clear Attempt To grade the student and change point values to submissions, click on Modify Attempt o After making modifications, click “Submit” To modify a final grade, click on the “Override” button next to Current Grade Enter the grade and click Save From this view, you can advance to the next student for the question by using the buttons on the upper right hand corner of the Grade Details section as noted below: 3. Downloading Results •
In Grade Center, place mouse over the double arrow next to Manage
. Select “Download”. Select the options under Data, Options and Save Location. Then click “Submit” 6