Blackboard Faculty Announcements

Do you have students that are constantly getting locked out of assessments? Do you find yourself spending a lot of time and effort resetting their attempts? We have found several answers to these questions by researching what other institutions are doing and talking to Britt Watwood, Online Learning Specialist in the Center for Teaching Excellence.

Other Institutions solution:

Try checking OFF Force Completion and use Set Timer in the Test Options.

Turning off Force Completion gives the students the ability to get back into the test if they are kicked off or locked out of the assessment. You do not have to unlock the quiz. They also have the ability to Save their answers as they go, so if they are kicked out they can go back to the assessment and continue where they left off.

If you turn OFF Force Completion it is important to use the Set Timer option. The timer starts the first time the student goes into the quiz, if they leave the quiz for any reason the timer continues and the clock keeps ticking while they are out of the quiz. If a student takes longer than the time allotted an “!” will show up in the Bb gradebook. Therefore, a student who looks at the quiz and intentionally locks their quiz to give them time to look up information before you can unlock it will be using up the time allocated for the quiz. You can click on the “!” and see how long they took to take the quiz, View their answers and give them a grade.

Our suggestion is to inform the students that even though the quiz says they can save and resume this assessment at a later time; they must complete this assessment in one sitting in the time that is shown (set by you with Set Timer). They should Save each question and once they hit Submit they cannot get back into the quiz. But if they are kicked out before they Submit they can go back in and continue where they left off.

Britt’s Watwood’s solution:

Britt said that he had a 30% lock rate until he changed his quizzes to work from Pools and now has about a 3% lock rate. He creates the Pool (Control Panel – Pool Manager) and then creates the Test by adding a Random Block of questions from the Pool (Control Panel- Test Manger – Add Question type = Random Block – Select questions from Pool). Britt does use Force Completion. This means that each student gets a unique test and importantly, gets a new test if the test is reset. What this eliminates is the student examining the test and then kicking themselves out, causing a locked quiz, so they have time to go study.

To learn more about what Britt is doing check out his workshops: http://www.pubinfo.vcu.edu/training/course.asp?Keyword=blackboard+assessment&Sponsor=All&Category=All&Audience=All&Campus=All

Regards,

Blackboard Team

For further assistance contact:
Technology Services Help Desk Contact Information
Phone: 828-2227
Email: blackboard@vcu.edu
Help ticket: http://www.ts.vcu.edu/helpdesk/
Blackboard FAQ: http://faq.vcu.edu/ts/
Blackboard Faculty Blog: http://blog.vcu.edu/blackboardfaculty
Blackboard Training: http://www.pubinfo.vcu.edu/training/it/search.asp
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Posted by at 4:58 PM | Permalink

Subject: Blackboard Assessments and Locks in Gradebook (Bb Recommendation)

The latest version of Blackboard that was installed on January 12, 2005 is suppose to help with performance issues related to Bb Assessments locking when students take a Bb created test.

Bb Recommendation
Bb made the following recommendation to help with the problem of "locks" occurring in the gradebook related to students taking Bb quizzes. The recommendation is to use the option to display the questions "One at a time" instead of the option "All at once." The "One at a time" option will display one question (one page), the student will answer, click submit, and answer the next question.

To Modify a Test to Display "One at a time:"

1. Click on Control Panel
2. Click on the area where the assessment is deployed
3. Click on Modify
4. Click on Modify Test Options
5. Toward the bottom of the screen (4. Test Presentation) there are two options: "One at a time" and "All at once" click on One at a time
6. Click on Submit

Posted by at 9:21 AM | Permalink

Test Manger (Bb6.1)-Point Values and Pools (corrected in version 6.2.3)

When a Test is created there is an option to set the default point value for each question. (Next to the "Add Question" prompt there is link labeled "Creation Setting." Click on "Creation Setting" and click on "set default point values for questions" and enter the value.) This works fine if the questions are not created from a Pool.

If Test questions are created from a Pool the default point value will be zero, even if you set the value to something else. You will have to modify each question in the test and enter the point value.

This has been corrected in the current version of Bb.

Posted by at 1:26 PM | Permalink