Assessments - setting the Review options

Students have submitted an online quiz or test or exam by now but what happens after they have submitted?


In a face-to-face classroom, students are probably given their graded tests which they review and might take home or hand back to the instructor if the instructor wants to keep them secure.  But what happens in the online classroom to the online tests or quizzes or exams after students have completed them?  The answer is:  students have full review from the moment the test is graded unless the instructor hasset some limitations on what students can see and how long they can see.


And yes, this does apply to even proctored exams!  If the instructor has not set the review options properly, as soon as students have submitted they have full access to their tests!


There is a tab on the assessment tool called the Review tab and below is an explanation of many of the options:

This is what the Review tab looks like by default.  Notice that everything is available once a student submits and the item is graded (if necessary).  If the item is self-grading, like in multiple choice tests, complete review (including question text and correct answers) is available for students to see the moment it is submitted. NOTE:  Even if you have a proctored exam, if the Review information is set to the default choices, students can go back into the assessment, see all the questions and the answers and they can print.
Notice the first drop down choice:  View  Submission History When this is set for Full review, it means what ist says - students can see everything they have submitted and all information about the submission When List only is selected, the user may see a list summary of th eassessment including the number of points awarded and missed and an overall score Disabled prevents the display of feedback upon submission of the assessment
The second drop down choice is for Review Availability When any of the 1st column of choices (Review begins, Review ends, Restrict review) are selected, there is a drop down menu of options at the far right side. Instructors may set Review availability based on student submission, date the assessment is disabled (from the Interaction tab and NOT the Access tab dates!), or on a specific date. The review availability can also be turned off by using options from the Review ends choice. If Restrict review until all questions are graded is the choice and the assessment is a multiple choice test, this does not really restrict review since the questions are self-grading.
Display Feedback is useful only if there actually IS feedback for the questions Unless the instructor has taken the time to create feedback for correct and incorrect responses to questions, this option is not very useful If the instructor has created meaningful feedback for questions, it can display as soon as the assessment is complete, or at the end of each question set and before the assessment is submitted or the feedback can be disabled entirely.
The section which sets review feedback options display is Feedback Options: To display the option, leave the check in the box To disable the option, uncheck the box

  

With great power comes great responsibility (or why we hate the Access tab)

There is a tab that is very useful in all content pages in ANGEL and it is the Access tab.  But we truly have a love/hate (mostly hate) relationship with that tab. 


Not all content items (drop box, discussion, page) has an easy way to limit students from interacting with the item.  Most of the time, we recommend you simply set a due date, grade the item within 48 hours or so and anyone who does not submit by that time gets a zero.  If a student chooses to submit an item after the due date, it is up to you whether to accept the late submission or not.


Some instructors want to close assignments after they are due and have found the Access tab thinking this is a good idea.  When an instructor chooses a Start Date and End Date, this makes the item visible and invisible to students.  You, as the instructor can ALWAYS at least see the item (the icon is lighter when it is not visible to students) but students cannot see the item at all. 
This seems like it might not be a big deal, but if a student wants to go back and review their own work or any feedback for that particular item, they CANNOT because IT IS INVISIBLE to them. 


That means, they can't find it. 


Students don't know it exists other than remembering it was there once but seems to be missing now. 


We hate the Access tab for this reason and recommend you not use it in this manner.


Well, my dad always said I should never hate anything so perhaps I just have a very strong dislike of the Access tab.  Either way, it can cause one ginormous headache.


There are still a couple of good uses for the Access tab, however.

Good use	Bad use
Set a Password so students can only Access certain content if they have the correct password.  This is where passwords are set when students take Proctored exams.	Start Date and End Date.  Remember, this is when items become visible and invisible and if you set the wrong kinds of items to invisible (such as an entire folder) then students cannot see ANYTHING in that folder.
Set Tracking so you can tell when students access the folder or page or other item.  One caution about setting Tracking to Everyone:  this does increase the size of our student database of information and makes your course slightly more difficult to backup.  However, if you have an item you want to make sure students are viewing, setting tracking is a good idea.	Start and End Date.  Still a bad idea.
Team Access is a good thing if you want only one or two teams of students to be able to access an area.  This is also a way to limit who can see specific items if a student needs to make up an assignment due to some circumstance.	Did I mention that Start Date and End Date are bad ideas?
Start Date ONLY can be a good idea if you want students to work along at about the same pace.  This actually keeps students from working ahead which is sometimes quite necessary.  There have been instances when students think they can go in and do every discussion in the course and then be done with it even though that completely defeats the purpose of the discussions.  In that case you may want to use the Start Date choice so that the content is hidden until you are ready to reveal it.	End Date is hardly ever a good idea.  Are you seeing a trend?

Anonymous submissions on assessments

Welcome back to a new school year!  This is the first of the Wednesday Wingtips for 2010-2011.

There were a number of updates back in May during upgrade weekend. As a result, there were a couple of system settings that also changed.   This Wingtip will save you some grief!  Really!

Before your first quiz/exam/test using the Assessment tool in ANGEL, you will want to check the Settings and make sure the Interactions are set correctly.  For certain, check to see that student submissions are NOT set to anonymous!

	Find an item utilizing the assessment tool .  Most of the time, these are assessments, exams or quizzes. Look directly under the assessment for your options and select "Settings."
	Once you click Settings, you may receive a message that looks like this one.  If you do see this message, pick the second option - "Set User Tracking to Everyone and uncheck Make submissions anonymous." NOTE:  If you pick the first option, when students take your assessment you will not know who took it or what grade they made as it will NEVER show in the gradebook.  Also, this information CANNOT be retroactively retrieved so you definitely want to check this setting BEFORE anyone takes your assessment!!
	To make certain this happened correctly, go to the Interaction tab and check that the box in front of "Make submissions anonymous" is NOT checked!!! Be sure and click the SAVE button or you will have to do this all over again! Repeat for all of your assessments.

Pending Items: The Assignment Purgatory of ANGEL

What on earth is a Pending Item?

Sometimes, have students said they have submitted an assignment created using the Assessment tool but when you go to check it out, it's not there?  Do you know about the Pending area in ANGEL?  Pending is the Purgatory of ANGEL where the assignment is not submitted, but not available to students either.  This is when you will have to access the Pending items and make a few decisions.

First, go to the item and choose Utilities

The Utilities menu will open up a window like this:

Choose the last item on the list:  Pending Items. If there is no student work in the Pending area, you do not have to do anything more.   However, if there is student work in the Pending area, it will show up in a list.  

If you would like to see what students have done so far, you can choose the View button.

If you want to delete the student submission so the student can try again, choose the Delete button.

If you want to just submit what the student has done so you can grade what is there, choose the Submit button.

That's all there is to it, but it is an important area for you to check regularly.  Remember:  PENDING!

Give us a call in ITDE if you have any questions.

Configure Assessments

Configure is where you can put pertinent information for students so they know what to expect in an assessment, such as:

• Instructions for how long they will have to complete the assessment
• The number of questions available in the assessment
• How many tries they have to complete the assessment
• Information on whether you allow them to use their books during the assessment
• Insert a graphic for use during a set of questions

Just exactly how do you use the Configure option?

• Go to the assessment and click the title of the assessment
• Look for the word "Configure" and click it
• This opens a new window where you can set a title if you like (option) and insert Heading text
• Heading text is where you put the information that will be viewable to students
• NOTE:  Be sure to click the HTML Editor link just below the box BEFORE you begin keying information - this allows you some nice editing features
• Click Save when you are finished

Now, when you click the Preview button, you should be able to see the information you just keyed in for students and your students will be happier because now they know what to expect!