If you intend to offer online tests or quizzes, it is important to note that the college has provided some general recommendations as well as resources to ensure our students are successful.
Decrease Online Testing Anxiety
It is essential to consider the student perspective of above-average levels of anxiety of an online instruction/testing environment. Instructors are encouraged to consider a new testing plan where there are more tests proctored throughout the semester and where each test has a relatively low impact on the final grade.
Dropping the lowest quiz or exam grade is another way to further decrease test anxiety. This strategy will also be conducive to proper ethical behavior and will deter cheating by students. The selected testing method needs to be uniform, equitable and adaptable for students with special testing accommodations. It cannot be intrusive to students’ lives and should be FERPA compliant.
Discourage Cheating
In addition to lower stake exams, consider administering open book exams to discourage cheating. High stakes online proctored (Proctorio) assessments are discouraged.
From the beginning, instructors should clearly indicate to students the modality of tests that will be implemented in class, as well as the types of software and technology to be used to implement the exams. It’s also a good idea to provide a low-stakes test quiz to iron out any technology issues.
Canvas Quizzes
Canvas quizzes are an exceptional resource for proctoring assignments, quizzes, and exams. We recommend that instructors make use of question banks and other similar resources to minimize adverse cheating effects. Question banks are a place to house questions that can be added to quizzes across courses or accounts in random order. Note that Canvas Quizzes also allows variables to be randomized within a specific question, question ordering to be randomized for every student, and other useful functions to mitigate and deter cheating.
Gradescope
Gradescope is an online platform that can be used to create a common grading workflow for existing and newly created paper-based, digital and code assignments/exams.
Instructors can generate Rubric items, including descriptions and point values, to assign or reduce points as Gradescope presents each student submission. In addition to providing assignment statistics, it is integrated with the Canvas pulled course, roster and assignment information.
Panopto Quizzes
Panopto offers interactive video quizzing that can be used for low-stakes self-assessments.
