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1. Introduction  

Test Center is an assessment tool that enables you to author, publish, manage, grade, and administer tests, quizzes, assignments, surveys and other assessments. Test Center can be accessed by clicking on the Tasks, Tests & Survey link on the left menu of sites. Students use Test Center to take assessments and review their instructor's evaluation.

Work Flow

The workflow for creating and administering assessments is as follows:

1... Create question pools (Question Pools)

2... Add questions to question pools (Question Pools)

3... Add an assessment (Assessments)

4... Test drive the assessment (Test Drive)

5... If necessary, edit your questions (Question Pools)

6... Publish the assessment (Assessments)

7... Once submissions have been received, grade student work (Grading)

The following sections will go into detail for each step of the process.

Up

2 Question Pools  

Setting Up Pools

Before you can create and administer an assessment, you must have at least one pool with questions. It's a good idea to think about the organization of your pools prior to getting started.

Some things to consider:

- All questions within a pool are the same number of points (except questions marked as survey questions are always worth 0 points regardless of the point value of the pool they are residing in).

- All questions within a pool will be marked the same difficulty, so it might be best not to mix essay and objective questions in the same pool.

- You can create as many pools as you want/need.

- Pools are site-aware, meaning that you only work with and view pools for the site you're in.

- You will be able to import pools from one site to another, thus allowing you to re-use and build upon pools from other sites that you own, if desired. Changes made in one site's pools do not affect pools in other sites.

Note: "Import from site" works the same way for Tests, Tasks and Surveys as it does in other tools, such as schedule, modules, announcements, etc. Copies of all the contents of a tool are copied from one site to another. Therefore, when you import the contents of Test Center into a site, you bring in unique copies of pools, tests, and their settings into the new site. This allows you to make changes to pools or assessments in one site without compromising the integrity of copies in other sites.

Create a Pool

1... Click on the Question Pools link at the top of the Test Center page. Click on the Add Pool link.

The Edit Pool page appears.

2... Fill in the Pool Title, Description (optional but useful), Point Value, and Difficulty fields.

If you forget to enter a point value, you will be alerted to do so. If you still don't enter a point value, the questions in this pool will be assigned 0.0 points, and you will be alerted about it.

3... Click Done to return to Question Pools list page. Your newly added (empty) pool will be listed.

Question Pools List

The question pool list shows all pools created. Some things to note here:

- If you included a description, it shows here. If you didn't, that description area for the pool will be blank.

- The number of questions is listed.

- The number of points per question is listed.

- The difficulty level is listed.

- Click on the Edit icon to change any of the parameters you already set.

- Click Duplicate if you want an exact copy of a pool to build another.

- Click pool title to add questions to the pool.

Add Questions to a Pool  

1... On the Question Pools list page, click on the title of a pool to view its contents.

2... To add a question, click on the Add Question link at the top of the page.

There are seven question types. How to author each question type is described in the next few sections. (For information on how to import text into Test Center, go to http://etudes.org/mneme/paste-and-import-instructions.htm .)  

3... To add a question to a pool, choose a question type and click OK.

4... After you author the question, click on Done at the bottom of the page to return to the list of questions in the pool, or click on Add Another to add another question in the same pool. (For information on how to import text into Test Center, go to http://etudes.org/mneme/paste-and-import-instructions.htm .)

5... You will be returned to the question pool. All the questions you've created will be listed

6... You can sort the list by Question (A-Z) or Type (M/C, T/F, Essay, etc.)

7... To edit a question, click on the question's text (blue hot link) to open it in author view.

8... When you're done adding questions to a pool, you can click the Return button at the bottom of the list to go back to the list of pools, or you can click on any of the action links at the menu bar to perform other actions.

Multiple Choice Question  

In this section, you will learn how to author a Multiple Choice question type.

At the top of the page (as shown in the screen shot below), you can see the name of the pool you're working in, the point value, and the difficulty level for all questions in this pool.

1... If you want to author a multiple-choice question for a survey, check the survey box at the top of the page. There will no correct/wrong answers and the question will be worth 0 points. (Surveys are covered in another section).

2... In the Question box, type your question.

3... Check if it has a single correct or or multiple correct answers. Single correct answers use radio buttons and multiple correct answers have check boxes to indicate the right answer(s).

4... Put your choices into the boxes. Check the correct answers.

5... If you need more choices than the default, choose how many more to add from the Add More Choices pop-down box. There is a 25-choice limit (that should be sufficient).

6... If you want the choices shuffled, click in the Shuffle Choices box. Otherwise, they will be displayed to students in the same order you enter them in this view.

7... Delete Choice: You can delete a choice by clicking on the Delete link to the right of that choice.

8... Other options for the question include checking reason and adding hints and feedback.

9... If you check the Reason box, students will have a place where they justify their answer. Note that this will have no effect on their score unless you review their rationale for answer and manually adjust their point total.

10... If you enter Hints in authoring, students will be able to view them WHILE they are taking the test, provided that you check "show hints" in the assessment settings. If "show hints" is enabled, students will be able to click on a link and they will see the hints you offered in an overlay pop-up window.

11... The Feedback area is where you can enter additional clarification information on the concepts covered in this question. This feedback will be seen by all students when they review their submission (if enabled in settings).

12... Click on Done to complete the question and return to the list of questions in the pool, or click on Add Another to add this question to your pool and continue authoring more questions for the same pool.

At the bottom right corner of the multiple choice question page, Test Center provides information with the unique question id, as well as information as to when and by whom the question was created and modified.  

True - False Question

In this section, you will learn how to author a True-False question type.

1... At the top of the page (as shown in the screen shot below), you can see the name of the pool, the point value, and the difficulty level for all questions in this pool.

2... If you want to author a true-false question for a survey, check the survey box at the top of the page. There will no correct/wrong answers and the question will be worth 0 points.

3... In the Question box, type your question.

4... Check True or False.

5... Other options for the question include checking reason and adding hints and feedback.

- If you check the Reason box, students will have a place where they justify their answer. Note that this will have no effect on their score unless you review their rationale for answer and manually adjust their point total.

- If you enter Hints in authoring, students will be able to view them WHILE they are taking the test, provided that you check "show hints" in the assessment settings. If "show hints" is enabled, students will be able to click on a link and they will see the hints you offered in an overlay pop-up window.

- The Feedback area is where you can enter additional clarification information on the concepts covered in this question. This feedback will be seen by all students when they review their submission (if enabled in settings).

6... Click on Done to complete the question and return to the list of questions in the pool, or click on Add Another to add this question to your pool and continue authoring more questions for the same pool.

At the bottom right corner of the multiple choice question page, Test Center provides information with the unique question id, as well as information as to when and by whom the question was created and modified.

Essay Question  

In this section, you will learn how to author an essay question type.

1... At the top of the page (as shown in the screen shot below), you can see the name of the pool, the point value, and the difficulty level for all questions in this pool.

2... If you want to author an essay question for a survey, check the survey box at the top of the page. The question will be worth 0 points.

3... In the Question box, type your question.

4... Choose a Submission type.

- Inline only means students have to submit their answer within the editor box. They can type directly in the box or copy & paste from a word-processed document.

- Inline or attachments means students can submit their work either way, inline or as an attachment.

- Attachments only means that students have to upload a document created in a different program, as an attachment. No textbox will be offered to them.

5... The Model Answer area allows you to post an example model answer or solution, optionally. If you enter a model answer, it will be seen by students when they review how they did in their assessment, if enabled in settings.

6... Other options for the question include adding hints and feedback.

- If you enter Hints in authoring, students will be able to view them WHILE they are taking the test, provided that you check "show hints" in the assessment settings. If "show hints" is enabled, students will be able to click on a link and they will see the hints you offered in an overlay pop-up window.

- The Feedback area is where you can enter additional clarification information on the concepts covered in this question. This feedback will be seen by all students when they review their submission (if enabled in settings).

7... Click on Done to complete the question and return to the list of questions in the pool, or click on Add Another to add this question to your pool and continue authoring more questions for the same pool.

8... At the bottom right corner of the multiple choice question page, Test Center provides information with the unique question id, as well as information as to when and by whom the question was created and modified.   

Fill-in-the-Blank Question  

In this section, you will learn how to author a fill-in-the-blank question type.

1... At the top of the page (as shown in the screen shot below), you can see the name of the pool, the point value, and the difficulty level for all questions in this pool.

2... If you want to author a fill-in-the-blank question for a survey, check the survey box at the top of the page. There will no correct/wrong answer and the question will be worth 0 points.

3... In the Question box, type your statement. Include brackets { } around the word or words you want students to fill in. If you need assistance and examples on how to accept more than one correct answer in a blank, how to handle wildcards, etc., click the View Instructions link located below the question box. (see screen shot above).

4... Check the appropriate boxes for acceptable answers, textual or numeric, and case sensitivity, if desired. If multiple answers can be entered by students in any order, check the "Any Order" check box.

5... Other options for the question include checking reason and adding hints and feedback.

- If you check the Reason box, students will have a place where they justify their answer. Note that this will have no effect on their score unless you review their rationale for answer and manually adjust their point total.

- If you enter Hints in authoring, students will be able to view them WHILE they are taking the test, provided that you check "show hints" in the assessment settings. If "show hints" is enabled, students will be able to click on a link and they will see the hints you offered in an overlay pop-up window.

- The Feedback area is where you can enter additional clarification information on the concepts covered in this question. This feedback will be seen by all students when they review their submission (if enabled in settings).

6... Click on Done to complete the question and return to the list of questions in the pool, or click on Add Another to add this question to your pool and continue authoring more questions for the same pool.

At the bottom right corner of the multiple choice question page, Test Center provides information with the unique question id, as well as information as to when and by whom the question was created and modified.  

Likert-Scale Question  

In this section, you will learn how to author a likert-scale question type.

1... At the top of the page (as shown in the screen shot below), you can see the name of the pool, the point value, and the difficulty level for all questions in this pool. 

2... By default, the survey question type box is checked. likert-scale questions are used to survey people on their opinions and beliefs and they do not have a right or wrong answer. Like all survey questions, Likert-scale questions are always worth 0 points, even if they are in a pool with assessment questions that have a point value

3... On the Scale list, choose the scale that you want students to use to rate the question. For some questions, you may want them to choose from a wider range of values (strongly agree < -- > strongly disagree), whereas in other questions, a Yes/No answer may be best.

4... Other options for the question include checking reason and feedback.

- If you check the Reason box, students will have a place where they justify their answer. Note that this will have no effect on their score unless you review their rationale for answer and manually adjust their point total.

- The Feedback area is where you can enter additional clarification information on the concepts covered in this question. This feedback will be seen by all students when they review their submission (if enabled in settings).

5... Click on Done to complete the question and return to the list of questions in the pool, or click on Add Another to add this question to your pool and continue authoring more questions for the same pool.

6... At the bottom right corner of the multiple choice question page, Test Center provides information with the unique question id, as well as information as to when and by whom the question was created and modified.

Matching Question  

In this section, you will learn how to author a matching question type.

1... At the top of the page (as shown in the screen shot below), you can see the name of the pool, the point value, and the difficulty level for all questions in this pool.

2... If you want to author a matching question for a survey, check the survey box at the top of the page. There will no correct/wrong answer and the question will be worth 0 points.

3... In the Question box, type your question.

4... In the Choices area, enter a value in the left (choice) box with its matching value in the right box next to it. 

- When creating the choices, it's important to keep choices on the left and matches on the right, consistently. Don't mix them up. For example, if you want students to be able to match cars with country of origin, put all the cars on one side and all the countries on the other side.

- The Distractor Choice allows you to add one more choice than you have a match for. This makes the question a little more challenging. You don't need to add a distractor if you want everything to have a match. It is optional.

- You can add more pairs of choices by choosing how many more from the Add More Pairs drop-down box. There is a limit of 25 choice/match pairs.

- If your question is worth 5 points and you have 5 pairs, then each pair is worth 1 point. If your question is worth 5 points and you have 25 pairs, then each pair is worth only 1/5 point. Keep that in mind when assigning points to a pool and deciding how many pairs to put in the question.

6... Other Question Options:

- Other options for the question include checking reason and adding hints and feedbck.

- If you check the Reason box, students will have a place where they justify their answer. Note that this will have no effect on their score unless you review their rationale for answer and manually adjust their point total.

- If you enter Hints in authoring, students will be able to view them WHILE they are taking a test, provided that you check "show hints" in the settings. If "show hints" is enabled, students will be able to click on a link and they will see the hints you offered in an overlay pop-up window.

- The Feedback area is where you can enter additional clarification information on the concepts covered in this question. This feedback will be seen by all students when they review their submission (if enabled in settings).

7... Click Done to return to the list of questions in the pool, or click on Add Another to add this question to your pool and continue authoring more questions for the same pool.

At the bottom right corner of the multiple choice question page, Test Center provides information with the unique question id, as well as information as to when and by whom the question was created and modified.

Task Question  

In this section, you will learn how to author a task question type.

Task questions are identical to essay questions, except that they have an additional option under "Submission" options that does not require students to submit anything online for it; however, a task assessment gives you a place to provide students with instructions for a task, and return comments back to them on their performance.

For example, if your students give a speech in the traditional classroom, they don't need to turn in anything online. However, you can direct them online to the "Speech" assessment to read your evaluation comments on the high and low points of their speech and view their score. The advantage of the task question over creating an assignment in the Gradebook is that the Gradebook does not allow you to return comments to the student nor does it offer a place for you to include instructions, guidelines and documents for a task for students.

How to Author Task Questions:

1... At the top of the page (as shown in the screen shot below), you can see the name of the pool, the point value, and the difficulty level for all questions in this pool.

2... If you want to author a task question for a survey, check the survey box at the top of the page. There will no correct/wrong answer and the question will be worth 0 points.

3... In the Question box, type your question or task that students must complete online or off-line.

4... Under Submissions, check which method you'll accept: inline, attachment or either. If students are not expected to submit something, choose the 4th option.

5... The Model Answer area allows you to post an example model answer or solution, optionally. If you enter a model answer, it will be seen by students when they review how they did in their assessment, if enabled in settings.

6... Other options for the question include checking reason and adding hints and feedback.

- If you check the Reason box, students will have a place where they justify their answer. Note that this will have no effect on their score unless you review their rationale for answer and manually adjust their point total.

- If you enter Hints in authoring, students will be able to view them WHILE they are taking the test, provided that you check "show hints" in the assessment settings. If "show hints" is enabled, students will be able to click on a link and they will see the hints you offered in an overlay pop-up window.

- The Feedback area is where you can enter additional clarification information on the concepts covered in this question. This feedback will be seen by all students when they review their submission (if enabled in settings).

7... Click Done to complete the question and return to the list of questions in the pool, or click on Add Another to add this question to your pool and continue authoring more questions for the same pool.

At the bottom right corner of the multiple choice question page, TestCenter provides information with the unique question id, as well as information as to when and by whom the question was created and modified.

Manage a Question Pool  

To access a question pool, click on its title. From this screen, you can add, edit, view, copy, move, duplicate, and delete questions.

Add Question: You've already added questions by clicking on the Add Question link.

Edit Question: Click on the text portion of the question (hot link) to open it up for editing. You'll see the same window as when you added the question.

View Question: Click on the little page icon to the left of the question text to view it as it will be seen during the test. You'll also see the answer key, as well as other items such as add reason for answer, model answer, feedback, and hints, if you added them.

Copy to Pool: This feature allows you to copy one or more questions from one pool to another. The two versions are unique copies, so you can edit one version without affecting the other. To do this, check on the question(s) you want to copy, then on the Copy to Pool link.

-- Select the pool you want to copy to and click on OK.

-- Click on Cancel if you decide to abandon the copy operation.

Move to Pool: This feature is similar to copy to pool, except that it moves questions out of the original pool and into another pool. You are not creating copies; you are moving the selected items from one pool to another.

To do this, check on the question(s) you want to move, then on the Move to Pool link. A page appears listing other pools. Check next to the pool you want to move to, then click on OK.

Click on Cancel if you decide not to move.

Duplicate Question: There may be times when you want a duplicate question and reuse it in some other way.
To duplicate a question, click on the duplicate icon, located to the far right of the question row. Immediately a second version of the question appears in the list. It is an identical version of the original EXCEPT it has a different ID number to help you identify the copies. You can change either question without affecting the other.

Delete Question:
To delete one or more questions permanently from a pool, check the box in front of the question(s), then check the Delete link at the top. You will be prompted to confirm whether you want to proceed or not with the deletion. You cannot undo deletions, so be careful when confirming deletions in the software.

Click the Delete button to proceed with the deletion or cancel to abandon the process.

Sort List: You can sort the list of questions in two ways.

1) If you want to sort them into alphabetical order, click the Question header at the top of that column. They are sorted into A-Z order. Click again to see Z-A order.

2) You can also sort your questions by type. Click on the Type column header to sort questions by type (matching, t/f, essay, etc.) Click the header again to order them the other way around (essay, t/f, matching, etc.)

Manage Question Pools

 
When you've added each of your pools and added questions to them, click Return at the bottom of the last Question Pool. You will return to the list of all question pools.

You can see your question pools and information about each pool. Working our way across the row, we have a check box, an icon to edit pool properties (title, description, points, and difficulty), a hot link of the pool title which takes you to its questions, a description if provided, number of questions, how many points each is worth, and the difficulty level. The last icon allows you to make a duplicate of the pool - down to the last question.

Combine Pools: You can combine questions from two or more pools into a new pool, that includes unique copies of all questions from the combined pools that you selected.

To combine two or more pools, check the box to the left of the pools you want to combine into a new one. Then click on the Combine link at the menu. You'll be asked to set all the properties: title, description, point value and difficulty. Upon clicking on Done, you'll have a new pool which includes all the questions from all checked pools. 

The combined pool questions are not linked to the original pools; they are unique copies, so editing questions in either pool will not affect the text of questions elsewhere.

If you click on the Combine link without checking pools first, you'll get a warning. 

Duplicate Pool: You can duplicate a pool with all the questions in it.

You will be able to differentiate the two copies by the following:

-- The duplicate pool will show that it's a copy on its title (appended)

-- The ID number at the bottom right of each pool page will be unique.

To duplicate a pool, click on the Duplicate icon. It's the one at the far right of the pool row. Immediately, a second version of the pool appears in the list. You can recognize the duplicated version as it has the date and time it was copied appended on its title.

You can modify either pool's properties without affecting the other.

Delete Pool:
Check the box in front of the pool, then check the Delete link at the action menu. This brings up a pop-up window asking if you're sure you want to delete the pool.

Click that Delete button and it will be gone forever more. There is no undo command!

Sort List: The list of question pools can only be sorted in alpha order by the title of the pool.
To do so, click the Pool column header once for A-Z order and once again for Z-A order.

3. Assessments

Once you have created pools with questions, you will use them to assemble and publish assessments.

You can randomly draw questions from pools, or select questions manually, one at a time, to add to your assessments. The assessment can include questions from many pools. You can have many parts on your assessment, and each part can contain questions from any number of pools.

Create an Assessment

1... Click on the Assessments link at the menu bar. If you've not created an assessment before, the list is empty, so just click on the Add link at the action menu.

The Edit Assessment page appears.

2... First, choose an assessment type. Three are supported: Test, Assignment and Survey.

There is basically no difference between test and assignment, outside of the semantic meaning often placed on the terms by faculty, and in that each assessment type is distinguished by a unique icon. A survey has unique characteristics and will be discussed in detail later.

3... Next, give your assessment a title. This can be modified later, if needed. Add instructions (optional).

To create your assessment you add questions from the question pool to parts. At the very least, you must add one part in your assessment to add questions to it. In some of your assessments, you may have only one part, while in others, you may with to add several parts. As you will find, one part can be used for a complex assessment, calling questions from all your pools!

There are two ways to add parts: select manually and random draw.

We'll discuss how to add parts in a bit.

Once parts have been added, the total number of questions on the exam and how many points the exam is worth will show right above the Done button.

At the very bottom of the page is assessment ID and history information. This can be useful when comparing different copies of an assessment.

Add Part - Random Draw

The Add Random Draw option allows you to add a part that draws a different set of questions from your pools for each student. If the assessment is set up so students can attempt multiple tries, they will not get the exact same random draw questions each time they take the assessment.

1... To add a Random Draw part to your assessment, click on the Random Draw link on the Edit Assessment page. The Edit Part page appears. Part Title and Instructions are optional.

2... In the Select questions from pool(s) area, all the pools in your course site are listed. To the right of the pool title, there is a column which shows how many questions are available in each pool. Other columns show how many points questions are worth and their difficulty. Note that you can sort by pool title and points.

3... In the box to the left of the pool titles, add how many questions you'd like to draw from each pool. Don't go over the number of questions that are available in the pool or you will get a warning that your selection is invalid.

4... Click Done at the bottom of the page after making your choices.

Note: If you are assembling a test with a random draw part that is calling questions from a pool that has both assessment and survey questions in it, only the assessment questions will be listed in the add a random draw part page. Likewise, if you are creating a survey with a random draw part that is calling questions from a mixed pool, only the survey questions will be listed in the Random Draw to draw from.

Add Part - Manual Select

The Manual Select option allows you to add a part where you can choose particular questions you would like ALL students to get in a specific order.

1... To select questions manually, click on the Manual Select link on the Edit Assessment page. The Edit Part page appears. Part title and Instructions boxes are optional.

2... Click the Select Questions link to view a list of all questions in all your pools. The Select Questions page appears.

3... Check the box to the left of a question you want to be on the assessment for all students. 
 
4... If you're not sure if it's the question you want, click on the View icon (a page with a magnifying glass) to preview the question. Click Return on that page to return to this list of questions.

5... If you have many questions in your pools, you can narrow down by using the sort feature and sort your questions by pool, question type, point value, or even alphabetically, by question.

6... To sort, click on the header row of the question, pool, type, or points.

Another, more efficient way to find questions quickly is to use the filtering provided. Look at the drop-down menu and select the pool from where you want to select questions. Additionally, choose the type of question you want (i.e. multiple choice or essay). The software will shift through all your questions and will display just those that match your criteria.
You are now ready to browse through them and make your selections. 

7... Once you've selected all the questions you want, click the Done button at the bottom of the page.

You're returned to the Edit Part page. The questions you've selected are listed.

Ordering Manually-Added Questions:

Once you have selected questions to add to a part, you can order how you want them to appear for students. Set the number in the drop-down of a question to move it to the position you want.

1... Click Done at the bottom of this page to return to your list of all parts on the Edit Assessment page. You can now reorder your assessment's parts, delete parts, or add more parts, as you wish.

2... To remove a question from a part, check the question and then click on Remove from Part on the menu. This does not delete the question from your pools. It simply removes it from this part.

3... When you are finished adding parts to your assessment, click on the Done button at the bottom of the page to return to your list of Assessments.

You will set the dates of the assessment, and publish it from that page.

3.1 Publish Settings  

Set Dates

You can set open and due dates for your exams either from the Assessment List or within Publish Settings.

1... To set dates on the Assessment List page, click on the calendar widget to the right of the date box.

2... Enter the time and then click on the date.

3... After setting all the dates, be sure to click the Save button at the bottom of the page.

Publish Settings

Before students can take an assessment, it needs to be published.

1... To set your delivery options for an assessment prior to publishing it, click on the settings icon in the Publish column of the assessment.

The gear icon with the green check mark indicates an assessment is already published, whereas the other icon indicates that an assessment is not yet published (plain gear icon).

2... Once an assessment is published, you can unpublish it at any time, even after submissions have been received. When you unpublish an assessment, it will be removed from the student list, grading view, and the gradebook.

The settings listed in the section below can be altered at any time, even after submissions have been received. For example, if you change the due date or the number of tries allows, the changes will be reflected in all students' views, whether they've submitted the assessment or if they have not yet started it.

Assessment Types:
At the top of the publish settings page, you can select an assessment 'type.' Your choices are Test, Assignment or Survey. The 'type' for an assessment can be set in this view or when adding / editing an assessment.

There is basically no difference between test and assignment, outside of the semantic meaning placed on the terms, and in that each assessment type is distinguished by a unique icon. A survey has unique characteristics and will be discussed in detail later.

Delivery Dates:
Delivery dates can be set on the Assessments list page or the publish settings page.

The easiest way to set your delivery dates is to use the calendar widget. If you want to establish a grace period within which students can submit work late, you can enter an "Accept Until" date that is later than the due date. Submissions will be accepted past the due date and up to the "Accept Until" date, but they will be marked late. If you leave the Accept Until field empty, assessments will not be accepted after the due date.

Note: Students do not see the "Accept Until" date anywhere. It is up to you to tell them that you've set a grace period.

Tries:
Assign how many attempts you will allow students to have. Select Unlimited if there is no limit.

Time Limit:
If your assessment has a time limit, check that radio button and set the limit. Otherwise, leave it as untimed.
If you're unsure exactly how to insert the time, click on the Instructions link, which will show examples of how to format your time. Click close when you're done.

Review Options:
These settings affect what students will be able to see in Review after they submit the assessment.

Make Review Available

-- Upon submission - shows review immediately after students submit their assessment.

-- Upon release - shows after instructor grades and releases graded submissions.

-- After date - shows review at a specific time that you set.

-- Never - means students cannot see review unless you change this option later to something else.

Show Answer Key & Item Scores

-- For all answers - allows students to see which answer is correct or incorrect and how they did on each.

-- Only for correct answers - will not show the correct answer key nor scores for questions a student missed.

-- Never - means students won't have access to review at all. They will not have access to the assessment questions, their responses, answer key, scores, feedback, or anything. There will be no hot link to Review.

Show Feedback allows students to read any additional feedback that you included when authoring the questions.

Grading Options:
This is where you make choices about grading assessments and their listing in the gradebook.

• Automatic Release - means that the assessment will be auto-scored by the system and the results will be returned to students automatically. If there are any essay questions in an assessment and it is set to 'automatic release,' students will see the scores of the objective questions, but essays will have to be manually graded. Students will see a partial score for the assessment until you grade the essays and release the submissions.  
• Manual Release - means that grades are not returned to students until after the instructor releases them
• Send to gradebook - enters a column for this assessment in the gradebook and sends results to the gradebook .
• Anonymous grading - allows you to grade assessments without knowing which submission was made by which student. This setting can be reversed by unchecking the anonymous grading check box at any time.
• Surveys are always anonymous and, once published, cannot be reverted to reveal student names.
• Password - is an option for additional security and control of delivery of assessments, possibly at a proctoring facility or classroom. If you include a password, then students must type in the password before accessing the assessment. This is in addition to their standard login into the system.

Presentation Settings

The settings in this section affect the presentation of an assessment. They can be changed at any time, even if an assessment is published and students have submitted an assessment or an in progress of taking it.    

Honor Pledge: if you require students to accept an honor pledge stating they did not receive or give assistance, check the box.

Hints: If you want students to see the hints that you included when you authored your questions, check the hints check box and they will be made available to students while taking the assessment.

This feature gives you great flexibility in that you can allow hints in low-stakes quizzes, but disable them when using the same questions in a high-stakes exam.

Navigation: Choose "Flexible Order" if you want to allow students to answer the assessment's question in whatever order they want. This is the typical navigation setting for assessments; it is the default. It is learner-friendly, allowing learners to work on what they know first. If learners are unsure about the answer to a question, they can mark it for review and return to it later before submitting their assessment. They can proceed to the next question and return to unanswered questions at a later time. Learners have previous and next buttons to move about and access to a Table of Contents to jump to any questions they want to revisit. They can change their answers.

If you choose "Strict Order," it means that students will be able to see and answer a question only once. Students do not have previous buttons in "Strict Order" assessments, and no Table of Contents. They cannot go back to review answered questions or change their answers. This navigation option is used typically in high-stakes exams.

Layout: You can select how you want to questions to be displayed in your assessment: one question per page, one part per page, or all questions on a single page.

Setting your assessment to display one question per page is highly recommended as if students lose their internet connection or if they experience browser or computer issues, they will not lose their answers. When students answer one question per page, when they click on 'Next', their answer is saved. But, when many questions are on one page, the responses are not saved until the student clicks on Next, Continue Later, Table of Contents, or Finish.

For short surveys and quizzes, choosing to display them on one page is efficient. If there are technical issues, not much is lost. Students can answer the questions again. If the assessment includes dozens of questions, having them all on one page and losing one's responses can be frustrating, particularly if there is a pressing deadline.

Part Numbering: If you have several parts on your assessment, choose if you want question numbering to be continuous across parts, or if you want questions to start over at 1 for each part.

Note: Continuous numbering + no part titles will blend all the parts together, and will show no separate screens when a new part starts.

Final Message: Type in a message you want students to see when they submit their assessment.

Summary Settings: Once you've made all your settings choices, at the bottom of the page there is a summary of what your assessment consists of.

Click on the Publish button if you're ready to publish the assessment, or on the Save button if you want to keep the settings you've chosen but aren't ready to publish.

Before you click on Publish, it is strongly recommended that you click on Test-Drive to view the assessment from the student perspective and catch and fix any errors in point value or question text before it's published and locked (at which point, no changes can be made).

3.2 Manage Assessments

Once you've created some assessments, they will be listed on the Assessments List page.

You can add more assessments, delete those that have no submissions, unpublish both inactive and live assessments, and archive/restore any assessments on this page. There are action links that allow you to view, publish, and duplicate assessments. Additionally, from this page, you can easily set test open, due and accept until dates for all assessments at once, as well as set special access privileges for one or more students.

The following explains bout the options available on this page.

Icons – Icons – Icons

When you look at the rows on the Assessment List page, there are several icons in each row, each affiliated with that assessment. The screen shot below shows these icons with the title and dates portions removed.

Let's describe what these icons are for, starting with the left-most column.

Live Test Icon: This icon (little fellow with a pen) indicates that the assessment has submissions. At least one person has started taking the test. Once an assessment has submissions, it cannot be deleted, but it can be unpublished and archived, if desired. You can go directly to Grade Submissions for this assessment by clicking on the fellow with the grading pen icon.