Creating Assignments & Assessments in Blackboard Academic Technology & Distance Learning Department Fall 2013 Spring 2014
LANK ACADEMIC TECHNOLOGY & DISTANCE LEARNING DEPARTMENT Support and FAQs: http://www.ccsnh.edu/academics/online-learning-blackboard E-mail: distancelearning@ccsnh.edu
Table of Contents Assignments... 1 Creating an Assignment... 1 Grading an Assignment... 2 Downloading an Assignment... 3 Inline Grading... 3 Tests and Surveys... 6 Creating a Test... 6 Manage Existing Tests... 9 Importing Tests... 9
Assignments Assignments allow instructors to create and collect the coursework and manage the grades and feedback for each student separately. Assignments can be created from any Content Area, as well as any Module or Lesson Plan, within the Course Menu. Once an Assignment is created, students may access the assignment, complete as a separate file or a written submission, and send it back to the faculty member from within Blackboard. The instructor may respond to each student separately, supplying feedback about their individual assignment and attaching files, if necessary. Creating an Assignment In Edit Mode: 1. Navigate to the Content Area (e.g. Course Materials or Assignments) where the assignment will be posted. 2. Select Create Assessments from the action menu items and then select Assignment On Create Assignment page: 1. Specify the Name and the Instructions 2. If required, to attach additional file(s), click on Browse My Computer and select the file(s) 3. Specify Points Possible 4. To make the assignment available to students make sure that the Make the Assignment Available box is checked. Set the number of attempts, date restrictions if applicable. If tracking is required, check Track Number of Views. 5. Set the assignment Due Date. 6. Choose whether the Recipients would be all Students Individually or Groups of Students. 7. Click Submit to save the changes. Note: If multiple assignment submissions are enabled, students can submit assignments multiple times; if each attempt is graded, Blackboard assigns the grade based on the last attempt, unless faculty change this in the Grade Center. Blackboard Training [1]
Grading an Assignment Assignments that are created within Blackboard will automatically generate a column in the Grade Center for that assignment. 1. Click Control Panel -> Grade Center -> Full Grade Center 2. In the Grade Center find the Assignment. Exclamation icon indicates that students have submitted the assignment. 3. Click the Action Link next to the exclamation mark for a particular student. Select Attempt. Alternative way of accessing the submissions is via Needs Grading option: 1. Click Control Panel -> Grade Center -> Needs Grading. The total number of items to grade appears on the Needs Grading page. 2. Use the Filter drop-down lists to narrow the list of items to grade by Category, Item, User, and Date Submitted. Click Go. The filtered items appear on the Needs Grading page. 3. Click Grade All on the Action Bar to begin grading the assignment attempts. Fall 2013-Spring 2014 [2]
Downloading an Assignment Instructors can download all student assignment submissions or can select individual student submissions to download: 1. Click Control Panel -> Grade Center -> Full Grade Center 2. From the Grade Center click the down arrow in the heading of the assignment column you wish to download. 3. Select Assignment File Download from the drop down menu. 4. To Select Users: Use the top checkbox next to the "Name" column to select all student submissions (clicking the top checkbox selects all checkboxes below it) or select the checkbox next to individual student submissions for a more selective download. 5. Click Submit to save changes. 6. The system creates a compressed file in.zip format containing the assignment files. Click Download assignments now and save the file to the local machine. 7. Once the download is complete, use a standard system utility to decompress the file; this procedure is OS specific, but typically entails double clicking the downloaded file on the desktop or a file manager. Inline Grading Inline Assignment Grading enhances the grading experience for faculty and teachers in Blackboard Learn. Instead of requiring instructors to download student-submitted files to view or edit those submissions, instructors can now see those files "inline," i.e. in the web browser and provide feedback inline. Feedback options include a commenting tool, highlighter, text selection tool, strikeout tool and a drawing tool. 1. Click Control Panel -> Grade Center -> Full Grade Center Note: Assignments can be graded by selecting the Full Grade Center or Needs Grading options Blackboard Training [3]
2. Click the arrow next to the attempt to be graded, then click the Attempt. Click on the down arrow and choose Grade Attempts option to view all the 3. The document submitted by the students displays in the Grading window: A. Review and Comment inline Add a comment to a specific point in the document. Add a comment to a selected area in the document. Add a comment to selected text in the document. Draw in the document using a pencil tool. Highlight selected text in the document. Add text to the document. Strike out text in the document. Fall 2013-Spring 2014 [4]
B. Inline Viewer Toolbar contains the following features: Zoom out. Make the content of the file appear smaller. This button is also available to students when they review their submission. Zoom in. Make the content of the file appear larger. This button is also available to students when they review their submission. Expand the list of annotation tools. Download a copy of the file. If annotations have been made, you have the option to download a copy in the original format or download a PDF version that includes the annotations. This button is also available to students when they review their submission. Move back a page. This button is also available to students when they review their submission. Move forward a page. This button is also available to students when they review their submission. View all annotations. C. From the Inline Grading Sidebar you can: Expand assignment details to show the information from the assignment content item. Select additional attempts from a drop-down list. Click the attempt to load the submission in the inline viewer and update the sidebar with the appropriate attempt-related data. Type a grade for the attempt. View the grading rubric associated with the assignment. Show grading notes displays where you can add private notes, not visible to the student as feedback. Download the originally submitted file. If more than one file was submitted for the attempt, all files are available here. 4. Click the Submit button when you finish grading the assignment or click the Save as Draft button to finish grading at a later time. Note: Inline Assignment Grading converts, displays, and annotates Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and PDF files. If a student has uploaded a file that isn't in a format supported by the inline viewer, then instead of seeing the viewer, you are prompted to download the file in question Blackboard Training [5]
Tests and Surveys On-line Tests and Surveys are used to measure a Student s understanding of the Course. Test and Surveys are deployed to students in the Course by adding them to a Content Area. Once added to a Content Area, Test and Survey properties, such as availability and presentation options, are managed there. Creating a Test In Edit Mode: 1. Click on the Content Area (e.g. Course Materials or Assignments) where the test will be posted. 2. Click Create Assessments and select Test On Create Test page: 1. Click Create to add a new test, or select an existing test from the Content Collection. 2. Click Submit. On Test Information page: 1. Specify the Name, Description and the Instructions 2. Click Submit. On Test Canvas page: 1. Specify the Name, Description and the Instructions 2. Click Submit. To add a new question to the test: 1. Click on the drop down arrow next to Create Question to view the various types of questions. 2. Select the question type and build your question(s). Fall 2013-Spring 2014 [6]
Question Types: Calculated Formula Calculated Numeric Response Either/ Or Essay File Response Fill in Multiple Blanks Hot Spot A Calculated Formula question 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. Answer sets are randomly generated. This question 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. Users are presented with a statement and asked to respond using a selection of pre-defined two-choice answers. Essay questions require the Instructor to provide Students with a question or statement. Students are given the opportunity to type an answer into a text field. Sample answers can be added for users or Graders to use as a reference. These types of questions must be graded manually on the Grade Assessment page. Users upload a file from the local drive or from the Content Collection as the answer to the question. This type of question is graded manually. Fill in the Blank answers are evaluated based on an exact text match. Accordingly, it is important to keep the answers simple and limited to as few words as possible. Answers are not case sensitive, but are evaluated based on spelling. 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. 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. Blackboard Training [7]
Matching Multiple Answer Multiple Choice Opinion Scale/ Likert Ordering Question Metadata Quiz Bowl Random Block Short Answer True/ False Matching questions allow Students to pair items in one column to items in another column. Instructors may include a different numbers of questions and answers in a Matching question. Multiple answer questions allow users to choose more than one answer. The number of answer choices is limited to 20. Multiple-choice questions allow the users a multitude of choices with only one correct answer. In multiple-choice questions, users indicate the correct answer by selecting a radio button. The number of answer choices is limited to 20. Question type based on a rating scale designed to measure attitudes or reactions. This type of question is popular to use in surveys in order to get a comparable scale of opinion. Users indicate the multiple choice answer that represents their attitude or reaction. Ordering questions require users to provide an answer by selecting the correct order of a series of items. Instructors have the option to create categories, keywords, Learning Objectives, and Levels of Difficulty for questions to help organize them for future use. Quiz Bowl questions are a way to add fun and creativity to tests, such as self-assessments or in-class contests. The user is shown the answer and responds by entering the correct question into a text box. Random Blocks enable the Instructor to use a random selection of questions from a Pool. Be aware that it is not possible to add a Random Block of questions from another Test or Survey. 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. 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. Fall 2013-Spring 2014 [8]
To create a Random Block of /Find a Question from a Pool or Test: Click on the drop down arrow next to Reuse Question to choose the desired option. To Upload prepared offline: Click on the Upload menu item and select the prepared file from the local machine. Note: Those two (advanced) options will be covered in a separate training session. Manage Existing Tests 1. Click Control Panel -> Course Tools -> Tests, Surveys and Pools 2. Click Tests to go to the Tests page. 3. Click the down-arrow icon next to the test's name to expand the contextual menu and options for edit, export, copy, and delete. Note: The "delete" function will not be available for a test once students have begun taking the test, or for tests which have questions associated with the question sets of other tests. Importing Tests 1. Click Control Panel -> Course Tools -> Tests, Surveys and Pools 2. Click Tests to go to the Tests page. 3. Click Import Test and select the prepared file from the local machine. 4. Once the file is uploaded, click Submit. 5. The imported test will be visible in the list of tests. Note: Only tests that are exported from Blackboard can be imported. Blackboard Training [9]