Remote Tests & Assessments

[Thao Nghi Tu]

Hi Michal,

You and I have been emailing back and forth today but I also wanted to add information on here for others.

You can add more questions on an exam where students choose which questions to answer, however the tricky part is figuring out the grading. Sakai assessments are calculated based on the total point values of all questions combined. If you’re not expecting students to answer all questions on a test, you don’t want them to be penalized for the questions they don’t answer.

One option to get around this is to make all your questions worth 0 points and then add one additional question that’s worth the total maximum points for this section on the test. Students can leave this last question blank. For example, you may have 10 total questions, each worth 10 points, and want students to answer 7 of those questions. The first 10 questions will be worth 0 points each and your last question will be worth 70 points. As you’re grading, you can enter scores for the first 10 questions so that your grading may look like this:

Question 1 of 11: 10 / 0 Points
Question 2 of 11: 0 / 0 Points (student left unanswered)
Question 3 of 11: 10 / 0 Points
Question 4 of 11: 10 / 0 Points
etc.
Question 11 of 11: 0 / 70 Points

The total calculated will be based out of 70 points.

Thanks!
Thao Nghi

[Karen Booth]

Hi, I hope someone is still monitoring this forum and is working on Friday! I want my final exam which they will take using the Sakai tests and quizzes tool to be “open book.” The exam will be on the Sakai site for their recitation while the “books” (slides, readings, handouts, lecture notes, zoom recordings, etc.) are all under Resources on the Sakai lecture site. Will they be able to navigate from the open test on the recitation site to the resources on the lecture site without losing whatever they’ve done on the test up to that point? If so, how should they do that and what’s the best browser to use (e.g., Chrome, Explorer, Safari, Firefox)?
I’d like to keep the test timed (4 hours is the current setting) but if it would make it less likely that they would lose their work when they go to look something up under resources, I am willing to get rid of the time limit.
Thanks so much,
Karen

[Tyler Ritter]

Hi Karen. Yes, we’re keeping an eye on the forums and we’ll be in touch tomorrow with an answer. I know this can be done but will leave it to our Sakai experts to confirm the best method.

Tyler

[Thao Nghi Tu]

Thanks, Tyler.

Karen,

Students can navigate to another Sakai site while taking a test, however it’s imperative that they not open multiple browser tabs/windows of Sakai to do so. Having multiple browser windows open of Sakai while taking a test can potentially cause them to lose their work due to opening a new active Sakai session. If students must navigate to another part of Sakai, whether it’s in the recitation site the exam is in or the lecture site, students should save their work and exit the exam before navigating to another part of Sakai within that same browser tab. We do have several notices within the Tests & Quizzes tool to alert students of this browser behavior. My guess is that some students may work in multiple browser tabs while they have the test open in one window and their notes in another window, so I think the safest solution would be to remove the timer or give an overly generous time to complete the exam in case any of them lose some of their work. It’s also a good idea of them to save written responses in particular in a Word doc for example. We have several tips on Sakai Tests & Quizzes you and your students are welcome to review.

Please note if there is a timer and students navigate away from their exam, the clock does not pause but continues to run. Also note the recommended web browser for Sakai is Firefox. Let us know if you have any more questions!

Thanks,
Thao Nghi

[Michal Osterweil]

Hi,

I feel really silly asking this, as I am sure I should know, but is there a way to import an Answer Key for TA to use while grading that I enter say ONCE for all the different answers that they can have on screen while grading each answer? (These are short essays so it wasn’t something Sakai could grade).
(I have a word version of an answer key, but my TA doesn’t have a printer and it will be annoying for him to toggle between Sakai and a word doc.)

thank you so much,
Michal

[Karen Booth]

Thanks so much for your quick and useful response.
Just a follow-up to be sure — students can “exit” their exam and then go back into it even if the settings are “single submission” only, is that right? “Exit” and “submit” are different things, yes?
Thanks again!
Karen

[Thao Nghi Tu]

Hi Michal,

There are no silly questions here. 🙂 The Short Answer/Essay type of question allows for Model Short Answers and Feedback to be displayed to students. Please note that whatever content is added here will be visible to all students who took the test. If you do not want all students to receive the same feedback on each questions, you/your TA would need to add individualized comments one-by-one from the Word doc.

In order for these options to display to students once feedback is available, be sure to check the appropriate options in the “Set advanced feedback options” in the Grading and Feedback tab in your Settings. If the test has already been published, you want to edit the test in the Published Copies tab.

Here are some resources on feedback in Tests & Quizzes:

– Grading and feedback options
– How students view feedback
– Blog post with details on feedback and what students see

Thanks!
Thao Nghi

[Thao Nghi Tu]

Hi Karen,

That’s correct — “exit” and “submit” are two different things. Students will always be able to exit a test including single-submission tests, whether that’s by saving and exiting or having their browser close for whatever reason, and then go back into the test to submit it. That is of course assuming the timer has not run out (if it’s timed) or the due date has not passed. We recommend checking the “Autosubmit” box to automatically submit any tests students did not successfully submit.

Thanks!
Thao Nghi

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