Exams and quizzes online
How this will help:
The basics
You may be comfortable with giving exams or tests in your residential classroom, but what about now in your online class? You may be wondering if you even should give an online exam? How will you know if there are issues with academic integrity? Online teaching can still use quizzes and exams, but a few considerations will help them be more effective without sacrificing academic integrity. (A note about language: Canvas’ testing tool is called Quizzes. This tool can be used for high or low stakes testing, ungraded practice opportunities or even reflections and surveys. You can create any of these as a Quiz item, even though you may name it Exam, Final, Test, etc.).
If you are moving your course from a face-to-face setting to an online environment, you should first reflect on why you are giving the exam, and if it is the best type of assessment for the learning you are trying to measure. Exams are good for measuring objective knowledge, and multiple-choice questions make it easy to grade, but it’s not always the best for measuring deep learning. If you are new to online teaching, at least consider that there may be an alternative way to measure student progress. Think about projects, performances, portfolios and other similar authentic assessments.
If an exam is the best assessment tool to measure achievement, take the steps to prepare as best you can. Giving an exam outside the carefully controlled environment of a face-to-face classroom comes with a different set of challenges and assumptions, but can still be very useful in the classroom. If you’ve decided that you do want to give your students an online test there are some things to keep in mind:
- Familiarize yourself with the different options for assessments. Canvas has a robust set of quizzing and assessment tools. Training is offered through ITS Teaching and Learning if you’d like to learn more about the different options available.
- Assume the test is open book. It’s natural to be concerned about academic integrity in online assessments. One of the best ways is to create your exam assuming students are taking an open-book test. Write your questions to include more application and critical thinking skills and less memorization. If memorization is important, consider a tool like Problem Roulette to help students learn the material with practice in a lower stakes environment. If you would like more information, check out this guide to open-book exams by the University of Newcastle Australia.
- Create robust question banks. Canvas allows the creation of banks of questions that can then be randomized so that each student can get an individualized exam. Answers can be randomized so that even within the same question, no two students get the same order of answers in a question.
- Use quizzes for low-stakes measures of learning rather than high-stakes. Students are more likely to consider cheating in high-pressure assessments. If you are using exams/quizzes to measure knowledge – use it in a low-stakes way as a method of monitoring progress rather than making decisions.
- Have a rationale for the quiz settings you choose. There are a lot of different security settings in Canvas quizzes that can seem overwhelming, and it’s tempting to turn them all on. For example, creating a quiz with a narrow time window of 60 minutes and a deadline of midnight may seem like a well-intentioned way to control for academic integrity. However, your students may have a slow or poor internet connection, or be in a different time zone. Also think about when the quiz or exam is due – If students have a problem, you will probably be answering student questions at the last minute. Give students 24 hours in which they can complete their exam and a deadline that is friendly for your schedule.
- If your test is high-stakes, proctoring is available. Proctoring involves a third-party service that monitors students during the exam. However, it has an additional fee, and there are concerns about accessibility and bias with proctoring.
- Prepare your students
- Quizzes and exams are stressful for your students too. Consider giving students a “no pressure” practice session where they go through the motions of taking and submitting an exam-without the content. This also gives you the opportunity to practice and see what the grading looks like, what types of questions arise, etc. Use a quiz as an informal way to survey student understanding rather than assigning a heavy percentage of course points.
- Write test instructions for students that fully describe what’s going to happen. (Here’s an example of sample text)
- Use the same instructions (and Quiz settings) for the practice session and actual exam.
- Give students a guide to help prepare themselves for the quiz.
Resources
University of Michigan
ITS – Canvas Training
CAI – Student guide for taking quizzes in Canvas
Other Resources
Brigham Young University – 14 rules for writing multiple choice questions
Canvas Commons-
University of Newcastle Australia – A Guide for Academics – Open Book Exams
Sample Test Instructions for Students:
Note to instructors: replace bracketed with your own information.
Welcome to the [Final Exam for Course ABC]. This test consists of [50 multiple choice] questions. Each question is worth [2] points and the entire test is worth [20%] of your course grade.
Please note the following:
- You will have [1] attempt to complete the exam.
- You will have [60] minutes to complete the exam. You will see a pop-up warning if you are running short on time. If you run out of time and have not submitted, your quiz will be automatically submitted.
- Alternatively, you may leave your test untimed.
- You will see [all/one] question(s) at a time.You [will/ will not] be able to change your answer after you have answered.
- Alternatively, you can set the quiz so it shows all the questions in the same screen. This setting is personal preference.
- After you complete all the questions you will press the Submit Quiz button.
Take your time and good luck!