Test Results and Access Logs

A Grade Center column is automatically created anytime you deploy a test within Blackboard, and Blackboard will automatically score any objective questions (i.e., multiple choice, true/false) based on the answers you provide when you create the test.  If the entire test is objective, the test grade will automatically be added to the Grade Center as each student completes the exam.  As an instructor, you will need to view the results for each test to be able to manually grade any subjective questions (i.e., short answer, essay, file response) and then save and post the test scores. 

Tests that need to be graded can be accessed from either the Needs Grading page or the Full Grade Center.  To learn more about grading tests, which can include options to grade anonymously, grade all responses to a specific question, and give full credit for all responses to a question, see Blackboard Help's official Grade Tests page.

From the Grade Center, you can also view statistical information, such as what percentage of students chose each multiple choice answer within each question.  To do so drop down from the top of the Grade Center column for a particular test, and select Attempts Statistics.  Learn more at Blackboard Help's official Test and Survey Results page.  You can also run an Item Analysis on a test to view data about overall test performance as well as data about individual questions.  Learn more at Blackboard Help's official Item Analysis page, as well as by viewing the following video:

Additionally, you can view a test attempt's Access Log for each individual student's test attempt to learn more about how much time a student spent on each individual question, as well as their start/end times for the test.  To view the access log:

• enter an individual student's test attempt
• expand the Test Information session by clicking the arrow to the left of it
• click the Access Log button

Learn more at Blackboard Help's official Resolve Student Issues with Tests page.

For additional assistance with Blackboard tests, visit the Tests, Surveys, and Pools Blackboard Help page, or . . . contact the TLC at tlc@icc.edu or (309) 694-8908, or visit us in room 240A on the East Peoria campus.

Later this week our Blackboard Users' Group will meet in the TLC on Wednesday, March 2 at 12noon or Thursday, March 3 at 3pm - participants may attend either session.

Our March blog series will focus on Web Content and will include topics about Mashups, embedded content, and Video Everywhere.

Deploying a Test

In last week's post we explored several options for building a test within Blackboard.  Once a test is built, it exists for you as an instructor to be able to view or edit it, but it will not be visible to students until you deploy it within the course.

To deploy a test or quiz within a Blackboard course, you need to first determine the content area where students should be able to access it.  For some it works best to have a separate button on your Blackboard course navigation menu called "Tests" or "Tests & Quizzes."  For others, the content for each chapter/module/unit is organized into subfolders of a content area, and each test or quiz should be placed within the appropriate subfolder.  Organizing a course in this way is helpful to students so that they can find everything related to a particular chapter or unit of study in one place, rather than having to visit several different areas within a Blackboard course.

To deploy a test that has already been built within a Blackboard course:

1. Navigate to the course area where you wish to deploy it
2. From the action bar on top, select Assessments
3. Click the Test option under the Assessment drop-down
4. Select a test from the available list (only those not yet deployed will appear)
5. Click Submit

This will take you to the Test Options page, where you can customize all of the following test settings for your students:

• Make the Link Available
  This will make the test visible to students within the content area you have selected.  You can make it available only after or until a certain date using the date options below.
  
• Add a New Announcement for this Test/Survey
  The announcement lets students know that a new assessment has been made available within the course and provides a link to that assessment.
  
• Multiple Attempts
  You can choose how many attempts students may take for each test, as well as which attempt's score will be used.  The Feedback options (see below) allow you to customize what scores and feedback students are able to view following each attempt or the due date.
  
• Force Completion
  Selecting this option forces students to complete the test in one sitting.  If it is not selected, students may save their responses and come back to finish the test at a later time.  The disadvantage to using this is that students can get locked out of a test (accidentally closing their browsers, losing an Internet connection) and will not be able to continue it unless you, as the instructor, clears an attempt (if you are only allowing one attempt).  This setting would best be used when students are on campus taking a proctored exam via a wired Internet connection so that instructors are available to clear an attempt if necessary.
  
• Set Timer
  This gives students a set amount of time to work on a test within Blackboard.  It is often a better choice to use the Set Timer option rather than the Force Completion option.  During the test the amount of time elapsed will display to students, and a one-minute warning will appear near the end.
  
  Checking the box to Auto Submit will not allow students to continue working on the test once the timer runs out.  Without this box selected, students are allowed to continue to the test once the time has expired; instructors will notice a late submission in the grade center and have the option of adjusting points accordingly if they wish to do so.
  
• Display After / Display Until
  These are options for making the test available and unavailable before/after certain dates but do not need to be checked if you are making it immediately available via the first option on the page.
  
• Password
  Passwords to access the test would best be used for an in-class setting so that students have to be present to get the password and be able to access the test.  They are limited to 15 characters and are case-sensitive.
  
• Test Availability Exceptions
  This area allow you to make exceptions from the general test settings for specific individuals.  Exemptions can be made for number of attempts, timer, availability dates, and force completion.
  
• Due Date
  Setting a due date will allow the test to appear on the Blackboard course calendar.  It will also indicate to the instructor that a test attempt was submitted late.  Instructors also have the option of not allowing students to start a test once the due date has passed.
  
• Self Assessment Options
  These options are best left set to the default.  Checking the second option will never allow you, as the instructor, to see a student's test score or performance.  This would only be used in the case of a pretest/self-assessment if the instructor does not need to see or calculate the test results.
  
• Show Test Results and Feedback to Students
  There are a variety of options available for choosing which results and feedback are visible to students following a test attempt (or multiple attempts).  Students will always be able to see their test score (in the My Grades area), unless you hide that column from student view.  For a full explanation of the various options, see the Feedback Options section on Blackboard Help's office Test and Survey Options page.
  
• Test Presentation
  Test questions can be presented either all at once (on the same screen) or one question at-a-time.  If presented one-at-a-time, instructors can choose whether to allow students to move back and forth between questions.  The randomize questions option will display questions for each test attempt in a different order.

Click Submit to deploy the test to students with the settings you have selected.  One the test is deployed and there is at least one attempt made, you are limited in terms of making changes to the test.

Visit us again next week when we present options for viewing test results and test access logs.

Building a Test

Various options are available for building quizzes and tests to be delivered to students via a Blackboard course.  If your publisher provides a test bank (either Blackboard-compatible or as a zipped file of Word documents), TLC staff can help you import those into a Blackboard course.  We can also assist with converting your own Word documents to Blackboard pools.  Learn more about these options on our Test Question Processing document.


If test banks are not available from a publisher or you do not already have electronic or printed versions of tests, you can also create a test one-question-at-a-time within Blackboard.  Additionally, use the options below to edit tests imported into Blackboard from a publisher.  

Build Test

1. Visit the Course Tools area under the Blackboard Control Panel  
2. select Tests, Surveys, and Pools  
3. select Tests 
4. click the Build Test button
5. enter a name for the test (description and instructions are optional)
6. click Submit

There are three buttons available on the action bar of the Test Canvas page, allowing instructors to either build tests one-question-at-a-time or add existing questions from pools or tests already in the course:

Create Question
There are seventeen question types that can be used within Blackboard.  Objective questions, such as multiple choice, matching, and true/false, can be automatically graded by Blackboard.  Subjective questions, such as short answer and essay, will need to be graded by the instructor.  There are also options like file response questions, which allow the student to upload an attachment - it is a good idea to have students prepare some things in advance and upload them, rather than taking a lot of test time to complete a more lengthy response.  Learn more at Blackboard Help's official Question Types page.  Many of the pages provide examples for each question type, as well as video tutorials.

Reuse Question
This is the option most commonly used, as it involves options to select questions from pools, tests, or a combination of both, to build a new test.  We don't recommend choosing Question Set (the first option), but instructors can either select Random Block or Find Questions.  Random Block allows you to pull numerous questions from a pool and assign a given number of questions to each student so that they are all receiving a different set of questions (for example, you can take 100 questions from a pool and randomly assign 20 or 25 to each student).  Find Questions allows you to select specific questions from various pools or tests to build a new test.  Learn more at Blackboard Help's Reuse Questions page.

Upload Questions
Microsoft Excel or .txt files can be specially formatted and uploaded to Blackboard to create a test.  Learn more at Blackboard Help's Upload Questions page.

Building a test makes it available to you as an instructor and allows you to edit it at any time, but the test will not be visible to students until you deploy it.  Visit us again next week for an overview of deploying tests within Blackboard and the various options involved.

Rubrics

Rubrics are excellent assessment tools for any type of assignment or project.  Not only do they communicate clear expectations to students, but they also assist instructors when it comes time for evaluating student work.  "Rubrics can help ensure consistent and impartial grading. . . Students can use the rubric to organize their efforts to meet the requirements of an assignment, and [instructors] can use them to explain evaluations to students."  (taken from Blackboard Help's Rubrics page)

Learn more about creating Rubrics for Blackboard submissions . . . 

Anything within Blackboard that has points associated with it (assignments, discussion board, journals, blogs, etc.) can have a rubric linked to it.  By default, rubrics are not visible to students, but these settings can be easily changed.  When you allow students to view rubrics, they can preview the rubric before submitting an assignment and can view the scored rubric once you grade the submission to find out how many points they received for each portion of the assignment or project.  

Learn more about using Rubrics to grade Blackboard submissions . . . 

Instructors can customize any of the criteria and levels of achievement for any rubric.  Rubrics scores can be set based on points/percentages, as well as a range of either one.  A single rubric within a Blackboard course can be assigned to multiple assignments/projects, or each assignment/project can have its own rubric.  Rubrics can be created as part of the assignment creation process or can be created within the Course Tools > Rubrics area of the Blackboard Control Panel and later added to any assignment/project.

Visit Blackboard Help's official Rubrics page to learn more about creating, editing, and managing rubrics.  

There are some great online tools for building rubrics that can be helpful if you're looking for ideas for descriptions for each criteria.  You can gain ideas from these rubrics to use as you build your own within Blackboard.  Visit either of the following sites for rubric information and ideas (be sure to read and follow the terms of use / usage policy for each one):

• Rubistar
• Rubric Maker

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For additional assistance with Blackboard Assignments, including inline grading and rubrics, contact the TLC at tlc@icc.edu or (309) 694-8908, or visit us in room 240A on the East Peoria campus.

Next week our Blackboard Users' Group will meet in the TLC on Wednesday, February 3 at 12noon or Thursday, February 4 at 3pm - participants may attend either session.

Our February blog series will focus on Tests & Pools and will include topics about building and deploying tests, as well as viewing test results and access logs.

Inline Grading

Inline Grading is a Blackboard feature that allows instructors to comment directly on student submissions within the Blackboard environment, eliminating the need to download the assignments, comment on them, and then re-upload them to Blackboard.  Check out Blackboard TV's overview the Inline Grading features below:

In order for instructors to use the Inline Grading feature, students must upload files in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or PDF formats.  This feature will not work with files uploaded in other word-processing formats.  Students who use a program other than word to type an assignment should save as PDF before uploading the assignment to Blackboard.

Inline grading allows you as the instructor to comment on certain words, sentences, paragraphs, or entire areas of a student submission.  You can highlight certain passages, place markers at certain points within the text, or draw boxes around areas within the document and then provide comments in the margin.  You can also strike out certain words and provide text comments directly on the paper as well.  Additionally, both instructors and students can download an annotated version of the paper with all instructor comments included.

For a more detailed overview of how the Inline Grading features work, check out the following video from Case Western Reserve University:

Additional Video Resources:

• Blackboard Learn Quick Hit Video: Improved Inline Grading
• Grading a Blackboard Assignment: Inline Grading
• Blackboard Tutorial: Inline Grading | lynda.com

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Visit us again next week when we cover using Rubrics with Blackboard Assignments.

Creating Assignments

Why create and have students submit assignments in Blackboard, rather than collecting them during class?  There are several advantages:

• Maintain an electronic record of student submissions that can be accessed at any time, rather than collecting, maintaining, and returning actual papers.
• Make it easy to track any late assignments by viewing the date/time stamp for any submission.
• Have columns automatically generated within your Blackboard Grade Center whenever you create an assignment (or anything else that has points associated with it).
• Automatically generate calendar items/reminders within Blackboard, allowing students to track upcoming deadlines and due dates.
• Check student assignments for plagiarism using the Safe Assign option available when creating an assignment.
• Use Inline Grading features to comment directly on student assignments, rather than having to download, comment, and re-upload submissions (continue to follow this month's blog to learn more about Inline Grading).
• Use Blackboard Rubrics within the Grade Center to score and provide feedback on student submissions (continue to follow this month's blog to learn more about Rubrics).  
• Maintain a record of student assignment submissions as part of the course archive once the course has ended.

Assignments can be created within any content area of a Blackboard course by selecting the Assignments option under the Assessments menu; learn more at the official Blackboard Help page Creating Assignments.  The only requirements are the assignment name and points possible, but there are several other options available as part of the assignment-creation process.

Assignment Files - Use this area to upload any files associated with the assignment, similar to the way you would upload an attachment within an email.  Remember . . . unless you need students to make changes to a file (such as a Word or PowerPoint file), always convert and upload files to Blackboard as PDFs.

Due Dates - A due date will display to students when they open an assignment.  It will also add the assignment to the Blackboard calendar view, where students can click on the calendar item to go directly to that assignment.  When you grade a student assignment, you will be notified if the assignment was submitted after the due date/time.

Grading - Under the Submission Details option, we recommend allowing students two attempts for each assignment, rather than keeping the single attempt default setting.  Let students know that you will grade their last attempt and will ignore the first one if they submit two; this avoids the need to clear assignments and then communicate with students about resubmitting.  Learn more about Multiple Assignment Attempts.

Within the same area, instructors can check any of the boxes in the Plagiarism Tools area.  Checking a paper using SafeAssign will check a student's paper against several databases and can be used as a great teaching tool as well.  Learn more about Using SafeAssign in Assignments, and check out the Quick Hit video below:

Collaboration Tools - Best Practices

As we wrap up our month of blog posts on collaborative tools within Blackboard, we would like to focus on some of the best practices for implementing these tools, as outlined within the official Blackboard Help pages (linked within each title below), as well as sharing some additional resources that offer ideas for effectively using these collaborative tools within your courses.

Best Practice: Interactive Tools in Action - Visit this link for lists of suggestions for using each of the collaborative tools, as well as ideas for using the tools in combination.
Effective use of interactive and collaborative tools is essential for developing a successful online community.  While "students report that their satisfaction with online courses relates to instructor presence, and the collaboration and sense of community they experience" (goo.gl/MwySFF), these tools can serve effectively within traditional face-to-face courses as well.  Choosing the right interactive tools, based on course goals, can help to effectively build community by encouraging interaction and development of ideas.  

Best Practice: Grading Reflective Writing
There is much debate over whether instructors should grade reflective writing.  Some give points for completion, rather than assigning a grade to students' ideas.  Instead of assigning a score, they provide feedback to students' ideas in the form of comments.  This helps students to value the writing process, rather than focusing on details for the sake of earning points.  For those who choose to assign grades, it can be very helpful to include a rubric within the tool, and use this as a guide for evaluating the content.  

Best Practice: Commenting on Reflective Writing
"Good job" doesn't provide helpful feedback for students.  Instead, it is important for instructors to focus on providing specific and meaningful comments that will "encourage students to write more, examine their own writing and learning, and feel comfortable when sharing their thoughts and opinions" (goo.gl/hYDvfE).  It is also essential to focus on the big idea and provide positive comments regarding the student contributions.  Since the Blackboard tools allow students to comment back, this allows for dialogue and opportunities to continually encourage students with their writing.

Additional Resources

• Generating and Facilitating Engaging and Effective Online Discussions
  University of Oregon, Teaching Effectiveness Program
• Online Discussions
  Cornell University, Center for Teaching Excellence
• Improving the Use of Discussion Boards
  Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Teaching with Technology Collaboratively
• Effective Discussion Prompts for Online Discussion Boards
   Check out Galina Culpechina's video (linked above and embedded to the right) for tips on asking effective questions, sample question starters, and alternatives to the question-and-answer format.

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For additional assistance with Blackboard collaboration tools, contact the TLC at tlc@icc.edu or (309) 694-8908, or visit us in room 240A on the East Peoria campus.

Next week our Blackboard Users' Group will meet in the TLC on Wednesday, December 2 at 12noon or Thursday, December 3 at 3pm - participants may attend either session.

There will be no ICC Blackboard blog series during the month of December.  Our January blog series will focus on assignments and will include topics about inline grading, SafeAssign, and rubrics.