Blackboard Tests and Surveys Blackboard Assessments can be used to: test student knowledge, measure student progress, and/or gather information from students. Blackboard provides a number of different kinds of evaluation or assessment. There are two basic kinds: the Survey and the Quiz/Test. Surveys record answers anonymously: they do not indicate how an individual student answered. They are typically used for course evaluations and opinion polls. The Quiz/Test format allows the instructor (1) to assign points to questions, (2) to have the questions graded, and (3) have the results for each student added into the Grade Center. Faculty can mix together different kinds of questions in a single assessment. Blackboard assessments are not, at this point, problem free. For this reason, it is strongly suggested that they be used to provide students with practice exercises rather than to take the place of traditional testing. To access the Assessments area of Blackboard, go to the Control Panel and click on Test Manager or Survey Manager in the Assessments area of Blackboard (the same area as the Grade Center). Types of Questions There are 17 types of questions that you can use in an assessment: 1. Calculated Formula: contains a formula, the variables of which can be set to change for each user. The variable range is created by specifying a minimum value and a maximum value for each variable, and answer sets are randomly generated. 2. Calculated Numeric: resembles a fill-in-the-blank question. The user enters a number to complete a statement. The correct answer can be a specific number or within a range of numbers. 3. Either/Or: Users are presented with a statement and asked to respond using a selection of pre-defined two-choice answers, such as: Yes/No, Agree/Disagree, Right/Wrong. 4. Essay: Students are given the opportunity to type an answer into a text field. These types of questions must be graded manually and may use the Math and Science Notation Tool. 5. File Response: Users upload a file from their local drive as the answer to the question. This type of question is graded manually. 6. Fill in Multiple Blanks: This question type builds on fill-in-the-blank questions with multiple fill in the blank responses that can be inserted into a sentence or paragraph. Separate sets of answers are defined for each blank. 7. Fill in the Blank: The student must type in the answer. The instructor provides possible answers and should provide answers that allow for common spelling errors. 8. Hot Spot Questions: Users indicate the answer by marking a specific point on an image. A range of pixel coordinates is used to define the correct answer. Hot Spot refers to the area of an image that, when selected, yields a correct answer.
9. Jumbled Sentence: Users are shown a sentence with a few parts of the sentence as variables. The user selects the proper answer for each variable from drop-down lists to assemble the sentence. Only one set of answers is used for all of the drop-down lists. 10. Matching: Students pair items in one column to items in another column. Instructors may include a different number of questions and answers. 11. Multiple Answers: The student can select more than one answer by clicking on answer boxes. 12. Multiple Choice: The student selects one of the possible answers. The number of answer choices is limited to 20. 13. Opinion Scale/Likert Scale: Question type based on a rating scale designed to measure attitudes or reactions. Users indicate the answer that represents their attitude or reaction. When the instructor creates an opinion scale question, six answer fields are pre-populated with the following answers: Strongly Agree, Agree, Neither Agree nor Disagree, Disagree, Strongly Disagree, Not Applicable. 14. Ordering: Ordering questions require Students to provide an answer by selecting the correct order of a series of items. 15. Quiz Bowl: The user is shown the answer and responds by entering the correct question into a text box. An answer must include a phrase and a question word, such as who, what, or where, to be marked as correct. 16. Short Answer: Short Answer questions are similar to essay questions. The length of the answer can be limited to a specified number of rows in the text box. 17. True/False: True/False questions allow the user to choose either true or false. True and False answer options are limited to the words True and False. Different types of questions can be used in a single assessment. Using Assessments There are a series of steps involved in creating an assessment: 1) creating the assessment, 2) creating the default assessment settings, 3) adding questions to the assessment, 4) adding the assessment to the content area where you want to make it available to students, and 5) making final modifications to the assessment and then making it available to your students. NOTE: To avoid any potential problems, it s a good idea to carefully think through the various elements of the test before you finalize it and make it available to students, since removing a test once created is fairly complicated and difficult to do. Once you do make the test available, you will not be able to: Change the number of points for a question Add or remove a question Add or remove responses or feedback Change test creation settings Change files attached to a question You can correct any typos in a question or make slight revisions to the wording of a question. Students who view their grade and feedback (if available) after modifications are made, however, will see the modified test questions as opposed to the test they took.
Creating Assessments When you create an assessment, you are creating a shell into which the questions will later be placed. All assessments are created by either using the Test Manager or Survey Manager which are located under the Assessment area in the Control Panel. Since they both work the same way, the instructions here will refer to creating a test but the same instructions apply to creating a survey. Create an Assessment (test): 1. From the Control Panel, click on Test Manager in the Assessment area. 2. When the Test Manager opens, click on Add Test to open the Test Information page. 3. Enter a name for the assessment in the Name field. 4. Enter a description for the assessment in the Description field. 5. Enter any instructions for the assessment in the Instructions box. 6. Click on Submit. The Test Canvas page will now appear.
You can create settings that will apply to all questions in the assessment that you re creating, although these settings can be changed for individual questions. NOTE: These settings will apply to the current test only; you ll need to follow this procedure for any additional tests you create. 1. Click on Creation Settings on the toolbar at the top of the Test Canvas page. 2. When the Test Creation Settings page appears, click in the checkbox to the left of the option(s) you want to set as the default. Select the Provide feedback for individual answers option to include the ability to provide feedback for each question a student answers as opposed to simply providing feedback for Correct or Incorrect responses. NOTE: The feedback option is not available for True/False, Multiple Answer, or Matching questions. Use the Add images, files, and external links to questions or the Add images, files, and external links to answers options to attach an image, a file, or a link to a website to a question or an answer. Select the Add categories and keywords to questions option to create categories or keywords for questions. This is useful if you later create a Question Pool, which enables you to re-use questions for further assessments. Select the Specify default point values for questions option to set a default point value for every question in your test.
NOTE: You can change the point value for a specific question when you create that question. 3. Click on Submit to save your changes. The Test Creation Settings page will appear with the options you selected. 4. Click on OK to return to the Test Canvas page. Adding Questions to the Assessment 1. Select a question type from the Add Question drop-down menu on the Test Canvas page and click on Go. The Add/Modify Question page will appear. 2. When the Add/Modify Question page appears, enter the question in the Question Text field in the Question portion of the page. NOTE: This area of the page will vary depending on the type of question you have selected. 3. Enter the maximum number of points possible in the Point Value field. (The red mark to the left of Question Text and Point Value indicates that these are required fields.) NOTE: If you set a default point value in the Test Creation Settings and you want to retain that point value for this question, leave this field as it appears. You can, however, enter a different point value in this field, if you wish. 4. Enter the answer(s) in the Answers section of the page. NOTE: By default, the minimum number of answers for a multiple choice question is four (4), although you can remove answers you do not want by clicking on the Remove button to the right of an answer. When you do so, the number in the Number of Answers field will change to reflect this change. If you selected a test type with more than one possible answer, select the number of possible answers in the Number of Answers drop-down menu. The first answer you provide will be the correct answer. You ll need to provide additional possible answers in the following Answer fields:
In the Feedback section: In the Correct Response field, enter the response that the student will see if the question is answered correctly. In the Incorrect Response field, enter the response that the student will see if the question is not answered correctly. 5. Click on Submit 6. Repeat steps 1 5 for each additional question on the test. On the Test Canvas page, you can re-order the questions, if desired, by selecting a different question number from the Question drop down menu. To make changes to a question, click the Modify button. To remove a question, click on the Remove button to the right of the question. 7. When you have added all your questions, click on OK. 8. When Add Test page reappears, click on Submit. Adding the Assessment to a Content Area Students will only have access to a test or survey you have created when you add it to a content area. While it is possible to add a test or survey to any content area, if you will be using tests and/or surveys throughout the semester, it might be a good idea to set up a specific content area for that purpose. 1. Go to the Control Panel and choose the Content Area where you want to make the assessment available. 2. Click on the Add Test button. 3. When the Add Test page appears, choose the test you want to add from the Select an existing test: field 4. Click on Submit. 5. When Test Added page appears informing you that the test was added, click on OK. Making Final Modifications to the Assessment After you have created the questions for the assessment, you can go back and make changes to the questions, or make other modifications to the assessment. After the Test Added page appears, and you click on OK, the Modify Test page will display. Click on Modify the Test to open the Test Canvas where you can make changes to an assessment question, add additional questions, or remove an existing question. If you are going to modify the test in this way, you should do it before making the test available to students. Once you are done with all your modifications, you are ready to make the test available.
Modify the Test Options Click on Modify the Test options to set options for when the assessment will be available, how it will be presented to students, and other options. In the Test Availability section of the page: 1. Click on the Yes radio button for Make the link available to make the assessment available to students. 2. Click on the Yes radio button for Create an announcement for this Test to place an announcement on the main page to let the students know that the test is available. 3. Click on the Allow multiple attempts checkbox to allow students to take the assessment more than once. This is useful for practice tests. Note: If you set Multiple Attempts, the Grade Center displays all of the attempts. Scores can be based upon last attempt, first attempt, highest score, lowest score, or average of scores. Instructors can override the score independent of any attempts in the Grade Center Override area. All attempts are visible in the Grade center. The instructor may choose to clear (i.e., delete) some or all attempts for all or individual students. 4. Click on the Force Completion checkbox to force students to complete the quiz after the first time they launch it. They will not be able to exit the quiz and work on it at a later date. The status of Force Completion will be displayed to students after logging in to the assessment. 5. Click on the Set timer checkbox to set a time limit for students to take the test, and use the drop-down menus below to specify the length of time students will have to take the test. 6. Use the Display After drop-down menus to specify the date that the assessment will be available, and use the Display Until drop-down menus to specify the last date that it will be available. 7. If students will be required to use a password to take the test, click on the Password checkbox and enter the password in the Password field. In the Self-Assessment Options section of the page:
Please see the Self and Peer Assessments Handout. In the Test Feedback Section of the page, specify the type of feedback the student will receive: 1. Score (students will see their final scores, with no other information) 2. Submitted Answers (students will see their answers) 3. Correct Answers (students will see the correct answers) 4. Feedback (students will see the feedback you provided when you created the test) In the Test Presentation Section of the page, specify how the assessment will be presented: 1. All at Once (the entire test will appear on one screen with a Submit button at the bottom) Note: Students may skip questions if they wish to come back to them in an assessment that displays all the questions on the same page. This lets students distinguish clearly which questions they have completed and which they skipped as they progressed through the assessment. Students may use the Save button to the right of each question to save a specific question without scrolling to the bottom of the page to save. Saving a single question changes the status indicator to show which questions have been completed. 2. One at a Time (the test will display one question at a time) 3. If you don t want students to return to a question that they ve already answered, click on the Prohibit Backtracking check box. 4. If you want the test questions to appear in a different order each time the students take the test (if you ve allowed multiple attempts), click the Randomize Questions check box.
Click on Submit when you ve completed modifying the Test Options, and then click on OK when the Test Options Modified page appears and click on OK once more when the Modify Test page appears. Note: When you no longer wish for the test to be available to students, go to the content area where the test has been deployed and click the Modify button next to the test and make it unavailable. Viewing Students Assessment Responses If students complete a test containing all objective questions, when you go to the Grade Center you will see the grade provided by Blackboard. If there are questions that need to be graded by you, you will see an exclamation point (!) in the cell where the grade would normally be located. If you are using a survey, you will see a check mark letting you know that the student has submitted the survey. 1. From the Control Panel, click on Grade Center in the Assessment area. 2. When the Grade Center opens, you will be able to determine which students have taken the assessment by a number, exclamation point or check mark appearing in the assessmentname column. An exclamation point (!) in the column indicates that there are essay questions to be graded. 3. Click on the drop down arrow next to the exclamation point or grade and select Grade Details to view the student's responses. 4. On the Grade Details page, you can see the current grade (if present) and the Grade History. 5. From this page: View Attempt permits you to view the student's attempt, change the points for each question, and provide a grade Clear Attempt permits you to clear the responses if there is a problem or if you wish to give the student another opportunity to take the assessment Modify Attempt permits you to change the grade, make the student exempt or offer feedback At the top of the Grade Details page, you can easily move from one column to another or from one student to another by using either of the drop down boxes and clicking Go. Best Practices Pedagogy When instructors are using online testing, their greatest concern, of course, is the problem of cheating. Questions about this may include: How do you know if the student enrolled in the course is actually the one taking the test? How do you if students are working together to complete the test? How do you know if students are using the internet, their textbook and other materials to answer the questions?
While you can't know the answers to these questions, there are practices you can use to minimize the problem of cheating. Bring a new mindset to online testing: Unless you are going to be testing in a proctored environment, treat online tests the same as open book tests. Don't use questions that rely upon rote memorization. Publicize content, format, rules, time limitations, and honor code before you give the test. If students know what to expect, they will be less likely to cheat. Define cheating for your students and have a discussion about why it is wrong and ask them for suggestions about how to prevent it. Demonstrate your intolerance for it verbally and through your actions. Have students provide an academic honesty statement every time they take an online test. Ask questions that require application of knowledge. If students are asked to supply applications relating to the course content in the form of essays, case studies, and other forms, it will be more difficult to look up the answers somewhere. Have students provide personal examples of the concepts you are testing for. Design alternate forms of the test so that all students will not get the same questions. Learn the writing style of students before testing. If you have samples of a student's writing, it will be easier to know if the work they submit is their own. Set a reasonable amount of time to complete the test. If time is of the essence, it will be more difficult for a student to look up the answers before timing out of the test. Best Practices Technology Best Practices for Instructors: Online testing in Blackboard will work best if instructors set the appropriate test options when adding the test to a content area. The recommendations are as follows: 1) Allow 'Multiple Attempts' If technical problems do occur while the test is in progress, allowing for multiple attempts will make it much easier to resolve said problems because students can be asked to retake the test. Blackboard will record their scores separately for each completed attempt. 2) Do Not 'Force Completion' The 'Force Completion' option requires that students complete and submit the test the first time they access it. If a student navigates away from the test (accidentally or intentionally) before it has been submitted, or potentially if a student loses their internet connection, the student may be locked out of the test and will not be able to resolve this problem without assisstance from the instructor (or someone else with instructor level access). The instructor will need to enter the Grade Center and select 'Clear Attempt' to allow the student to retake the test.
3) Display One Question at a Time Electing to display only one question at a time reminds students to save each question as they go. Also, the action of saving after each question or clicking 'Next' keeps the browser window active and prevents session time-out. 4) Avoid Long Essay Questions Typing into a text box on Blackboard does not register as browser activity; thus, typing for an extended period of time puts the individual at risk for session time-out. In order to get around this issue, long essay questions could be broken down into several short answer questions, or a 'File Response' question type may be used to allow students to upload a pre-written file (like a Microsoft Word.doc or an Adobe.pdf). If this question type is used for a file that has not been pre-written, meaning that students are asked to write their response outside of Blackboard while the Blackboard test is open and running, students MUST return to the Blackboard test to click save periodically (at least every 15 minutes) to keep the test active. Again, not doing so could lead to session time-out. 5) Conduct a Pilot Trial When test/survey problems do occur, there are few remedies available other than clearing the attempt. Therefore, as in introducing any new technology in a teaching and learning situation, it is highly recommended that all instructors contemplating use of the Blackboard test/survey feature first conduct a pilot trial of the technology before using this feature in a live situation that will count towards a grade. To conduct an effective trial of the technology, be sure that the test/survey taking parameters of the trial duplicate those of the intended live attempt. For instance, if the test/survey is planned as an inclass exam in a computer lab classroom, be sure to run the trial in the the same classroom. If it is for a take-home style exam, instruct the students to take the trial exam from the same location with the same computer that they will use during the live test. Also, be sure the trial test has the same 'Test Options' as the intended live exam. 6) Consider Using Blackboard Tests as Practice Exams or Homework Assignments Especially if you are new to using Blackboard tests, creating ungraded practice exams for your students can significantly reduce student (and instructor) anxiety relating to online testing. Although most tests on Blackboard run smoothly, making critical grades dependent upon a flawless testing experience carries some risk. Best Practices for Students: Students sometimes have technical problems when taking a Blackboard test. To minimize problems, the following behaviors are helpful: 1) Eliminate Extraneous Browser Activity While taking a test in Blackboard, it is important for students to eliminate all extraneous clicking outside of the test/survey window. All of the following should be avoided while taking a Blackboard test or survey: refreshing the browser window opening a new browser window opening a new browser tab
navigating away from the Blackboard test/survey window to another website navigating to another area of the Blackboard site using the 'back' button Extraneous browser activity outside of the test/survey window is the number one source of student problems using the Blackboard test/survey tool. 2) Click 'Save' After Answering Each Question On tests/surveys where the 'Save' button is available, students must frequently save their answers. The action of saving after each question keeps the browser window active and prevents session time-out. For security purposes, prolonged inactivity on Blackboard causes session time-out. Students who try to submit their exam without having clicked 'Save' after answering each question may receive an error message that states, "The following questions may be incomplete:. Continue?" NOTE: Saving questions allows students to leave the exam and return to it at a later time unless the 'Force Completion' setting has been selected by the instructor, in which case students must complete the whole exam in one sitting. To complete the exam, students must click 'Submit.' 3) Click 'Submit' to Complete the Attempt On tests/surveys, students must click the 'Submit' button when they complete their attempt rather than the 'Save' button. Clicking 'Save' will allow students to return to a test still in progress but will not allow Instructors to access to their attempt. NOTE: Saving questions allows students to leave the exam and return to it at a later time unless the 'Force Completion' setting has been selected by the instructor, in which case students must complete the whole exam in one sitting. To complete the exam, students must click 'Submit.' 3) Note Test Timers and Time Elapsed When the 'Set Timer' feature is selected, a timer will appear in the upper right hand corner of the student's browser while taking a test/survey. The amount of time allowed for the test/survey will appear for the student in the 'Timed Assessment' section of the 'Instructions' box at the top of the test/survey. A warning will appear when there is 1 minute left in the alloted period. NOTE: Blackboard will NOT stop the student from taking the test/survey beyond the established time limit. Blackboard will, however, report the time elapsed for that attempt in the Grade Center. Students will see the total 'Time Elapsed' for their attempt in the 'Feedback' box after submitting the attempt. Depending on the test taking situation, it may therefore be incumbant upon the student to ensure that the elapsed time does not exceed the established limit. Retrieved from NYU Information Technology Services website on February 26, 2011 http://www.nyu.edu/cgi-bin/its/askits/bbkbasedetail.pl?doc=2242