Assessment Settings for Instructors

Assessment Settings for Instructors

This article contains a brief video overview of assessment settings and a detailed list of common and advanced assessment settings that should be reviewed and set by instructors before their course begins.

Before your course starts, review the assessment settings for each scored activity. Most default settings are determined by the author. The exceptions are Available Date and Due Date, which always begin as Always available and No due date unless the instructor changes them. Many instructors only need to review commonly used settings. Advanced settings are available but less commonly changed from the defaults.

Video Overview


Change Assessment Settings

From the new course section's Manage Page, navigate to Scheduling and Assessment Settings, then choose the Assessments tab to view and edit the default settings.

Use Bulk Update

Commonly, all or many the scored items should have the same settings, change the settings for a single item, then choose that item from drop-down at the top of the page under Copy and apply settings from one assessment to all: and then choose Bulk Apply. This applies the selected settings to all of the other scored items. Available and Due Dates will not be applied in bulk. Further customization can be made to individual items.

Sync Assignments to LMS (LMS-integrated sections only)

If the course is linked to an LMS, the instructor can synchronize all of the assignments to the LMS gradebook at once without having to wait for students to submit them for the assignments to populate. This allows further customization of the assignments in the LMS at the beginning of the term. As students submit scores, the scores will automatically synchronize to the LMS gradebook. Note that dates do not synchronize to the LMS gradebook.

Common Settings

Available Date

Available Date controls when students can begin the assessment. By default, assessments begin as Always available. If needed, instructors can set a date and time to control when students may start.

Due Date

Due Date controls when the assessment is due. By default, assessments begin with No due date. Instructors can add a due date if the assessment should be completed by a specific deadline.

# Attempts

# Attempts controls how many times a student may attempt the assessment. The most common options are:

  • a set number, such as 1, 2, or 3 attempts
  • 0 (Unlimited) for unlimited attempts

If you want students to keep working until they master the material, unlimited attempts may be appropriate. If you want to limit retries, choose a specific number.

Time Limit

Time Limit controls how long students have to complete an attempt. Use 0 (Unlimited) if there should be no time limit. If a time limit is set, exceptions can later be used to allow more time for individual students.

Late Policy

Late Policy controls what happens when a student works past the due date or time limit. Late submissions are marked Late in OLI Torus.

The available options are:

  • Allow late start and late submit
  • Allow late start only
  • Allow late submit only

If late submission is not allowed, an in-progress attempt will submit at the deadline, whether that deadline is based on the due date or the time limit.

Grace Period

Grace Period is the number of minutes allowed past the due date to allow an on-time submission. For example, if the due date is 11:59 PM and the grace period is 10 minutes, a submission within that window can still be treated as on-time.

Scoring Strategy

Scoring Strategy controls how the assessment score is calculated when there is more than one attempt.

The options are Best (most common), Average, Most Recent

Retake Mode

Retake Mode controls what students see on later attempts.

  • Normal presents all questions again on subsequent attempts
  • Targeted presents only the questions answered incorrectly on previous attempts

Targeted retakes are often used when the goal is to help students focus only on the questions they missed.

Exceptions

Exceptions can be added for individual students. Exceptions are most commonly used to:

  • extend deadlines
  • add attempts
  • allow more time when a time limit is set

If exceptions have been added, the number of exceptions will appear in the Exceptions field. That number can be clicked to view and edit exceptions. 

See more details on Exceptions: Add Assessment Exceptions for Students

Advanced Settings

These settings are available to instructors but are not usually changed from their defaults:

  • Presentation (Traditional)
  • Scoring Mode (Score at the end)
  • Replacement (All questions remain the same)
  • View Feedback (Allow)
  • View Answers (Allow)
  • Password (Blank)
  • Allow Hints (Disallow)

Presentation

Presentation controls how questions are displayed.

  • Traditional shows all questions on one page (default and most common)
  • One-at-a-time shows each question by itself

Scoring Mode

Scoring Mode controls when scoring is shown to students.

  • Score at the end shows the score after the student submits all answers, by far the most common choice for traditional summative assessments
  • Score-As-You-Go shows the result for each question before the student moves to the next question
    Note: this choice allows the available # of Attempts for each question but only one overall attempt. For example, if there are 3 attempts set for # of Attempts, the student may go through the entire assessment one time with 3 attempts available for each question.

Replacement

Replacement only applies in a very narrow use-case if the assessment includes questions with variables that change when the question is presented again. This is a common scenario for Real Chem which has many questions with dynamic variables where a question may appear as 50% of 250 in one instance and then 30% of 500 in the next when generating for additional attempts or for other students.

If the assessment does not include variable-based questions, this setting does not affect the student experience.

A separate article covers Replacement in detail: Understanding the Replacement Assessment Setting for Dynamic Variable Questions

View Feedback

View Feedback controls whether students can view author-created feedback after submitting and reviewing an attempt.

  • Allow (most common)
  • Disallow
  • Scheduled

If the author designed feedback, then with Allow, students can see correct, incorrect, or targeted feedback when they submit and review their attempt. Many authors design incorrect-answer feedback so it helps the student without giving away the answer, though that can vary by assessment.

If Disallow is selected, students will not see the feedback. They will only see whether their answer was correct or incorrect (if View Answers is set to Allow) before moving on to another attempt.

If Scheduled is selected, students can view the feedback only after a selected date, such as after a due date.

Feedback is designed by the author, so it may or may not be present in a given assessment and may have a varying amount of detail based on the design of the specific course.

View Answers

View Answers controls whether students can see their own submitted answers after they submit and review an attempt.

  • Allow (most common)
  • Disallow

Password

Password controls whether a password is required to access the assessment.

The default is blank which is most common. Instructors most commonly use a password in proctored settings or if an assessment is only available after the student reaches another offline milestone such as submitting other materials or meeting with an instructor.

Allow Hints

Allow Hints controls whether hints are available to students when the author has designed hints for the questions. Hints are authored content, so they may or may not exist in a given assessment. If hints are available from the author, this instructor setting determines whether students can use them.

Before your course starts

For most assessments, instructors should review at least these settings before students begin:

  • Available Date
  • Due Date
  • Attempts
  • Time Limit
  • Late Policy
  • Scoring Strategy
  • Retake Mode

The remaining settings are important but less commonly changed from their defaults unless there is a specific instructional or proctoring need.


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