Assessment in Online Courses 

When teaching online, re-thinking your assessments is one of the first steps in course development. Exams and assignments should be designed to protect academic integrity by focusing on higher level learning (e.g. application, rather than recall or understanding), using more frequent/lower stakes assessment methods, and leveraging online tools to prevent cheating. Below you will find some general assessment and testing recommendations in online courses, and alternatives to traditional quizzes/exams.

Online Assessment & testing recommendations

Explore our site for resources and guidance on conducting exams and alternative assessments.  These strategies, combined with the thorough curriculum design process, can be used to help measure the student learning experience.  While designing your online course, consider the following recommendations: 

• Articulate your student learning objectives.
  The first step is to identify your student learning objectives (SLOs), and ensure they align with your course activities and assessments.  Click here to learn more about creating SLOs
• Use more quizzes, fewer exams.

  This encourages students to keep up on their classwork, and it reduces the incentive to cheat because the value of each quiz is lower than one comprehensive test.  It also takes advantage of  test-enhaced learning, the idea that the process of remembering concepts or facts—retrieving them from memory—increases long-term retention of those concepts or facts. When taking this approach, consider the following:

  • Making quizzes low stakes - no one quiz should be a significant percentage of the final grade
  • Dropping the lowest quiz grade
  • Allowing multiple attempts - and thus making the quizzes more of a formative assessment

  References:

  Brown, P. C., Roediger III, H. L., & McDaniel, M. A. (2014). Make it stick: The science of successful learning. Harvard University Press.

  Khanna, M. (2015). Ungraded Pop Quizzes: Test-Enhance Learning Without All the Anxiety. Teaching of Psychology. 42(2): pp. 174- 178. Kibble, J. (2011). Voluntary Participation in Online Formative Quizzes is a Sensitive Predictor of Student Success. Advances in Physiology Education. 35(1): pp. 95-96.
  

  Final Exams in Remote Courses, Emory University, 2020, cfde.emory.edu/documents/FinalExamsinRemoteCourses.pdf.
  

• Vary your assessments.

  Tests are not the only option. If students are evaluated with various different methods, you have the best way of ensuring that there is real learning taking place. Take a look at some alternative assessment ideas in the section below.

• Manage student reference use.

  Require references no more than 5 years old, require specific references, require annotated bibliographies and/or prospectuses.

• Set up exams/quizzes to prevent cheating.
  • Mix Objective and Subjective Questions - Subjective questions may demand a deeper understanding of the subject being tested, are difficult to cheat on, and so can offset the impact of cheating on objective questions.
  • Use Question Pools - Rather than using a fixed number of items that remain unchanged for each administration of the test, consider creating a question pool. Questions can be grouped into sections (using the Question Library on Brightspace) by any number of criteria, including topic, subject matter, question type or difficulty of question. You can then use question pools to randomly select a set number of questions from a section(s) each time the test or quiz is administered.
  • Randomize Questions - Question pools allow you to randomize which questions appear on a test/quiz. There are also options that allow you to shuffle the order in which questions appear, and to randomize the order of answer choices for each question (do not randomize choices for questions that include all or none of the above options). This strategy can address the issue of students who take a test at the same time in order to share answers.
  • Set a Timer - Students who are adequately prepared for a test may be less likely to rely on open book/notes compared with students unprepared for testing, particularly if their time is limited. You can limit the time for a quiz/test under the restrictions tab on Brightspace.
  • Display Questions One At A Time - This will limit the ease for students to take a screen capture of the displayed questions and share them with other students. You can also elect to prevent students from backtracking to a previous question.
  • Be Explicit in the Directions- For each quiz/test, remind students that no phones or other devices should be within their reach (e.g., on the desk, in a pocket, etc.) when they are working. Frequent reminders convey to students you take cheating seriously, without saying the words themselves.

  Unsure how to use the above settings in Brightspace?

  Get Brightspace Training

• Use Respondus, SafeAssign, and Turnitin.

  Tools to prevent cheating on exams:

  • Respondus LockDown Browser - Require students to use the Respondus LockDown Browser with online quizzes and tests. This is a custom browser that prevents internet searches, accessing notes or other applications on the computer, or copying the exam questions themselves, among other things. Learn how to add Respondus to a Quiz in Brightspace here!
  • Respondus Monitor  - Uses the student's webcam to prevent cheating during non-proctored exams. PLEASE NOTE: Students will need access to a webcam for this tool. 

  *Direct your students to verify they have all the necessary working components to use Respondus by taking a sample test, found here.

  Tools to prevent plagiarism*

  • Turnitin - Enbale Turnitin on Brightspace. You will be able to view the Turnitin Similarity Report for all student assignment submissions, which checks a student's work against their databases and brings content matches to your attention. Learn more about  Turnitin here.

  *Properly cited direct quotes could show up as a match, but would not be considered plagiarism.  Be sure to review the reports generated by SafeAssign and Turnitin.

• Review additional tips for preventing academic dishonesty.
  • Develop unique or narrow assignment topics - These are more difficult to plagiarize.
  • Articulate what kinds of collaboration are permissible - Collusion may occur because students are not aware that working with a peer is not allowed for a given assignment. Be explicit about your policies and expectations on your syllabus and in directions for each assignment.
  • Provide opportunities for peer review and comments - Students that use content that is not their own are usually unable to effectively answer questions about their plagiarized content.
  • Academic Integrity Policy integration - Create a quiz or question - Have students answer question(s) agreeing to the policy or comprehension of policy components.  Reminding students of their responsibility can be a powerful method to deter cheating.  Be sure to include the academic integrity policy in the course information page on Brightspace, on the syllabus, and on each test. Include a detailed description of plagiarism and the plagiarism policy. Consider making a new announcement reiterating SBU’s policy.

  Additional Tip : Check study sites such as Course Hero for your own course content and request removal  if necessary.

Alternative Assessments

In addition to quizzes and exams with objective questions, consider adding alternative assessments such as the ones below:  

• Online Discussions

  Graded Weekly Online Discussions
  

  What to ask:  

  • Questions that require original thought, synthesizing of ideas, demonstrate comprehension of a concept  
  • Use prompts that do not have a single “correct” answer. Be sure there is no direct answer in their text book or video lectures  
  • Mix it up—ask for text or video answers (video could be a webcam answer, or it could be recording something outside, a task they need to complete, a demo, etc.
  • Have them do a web search and post sites, images or videos to support their answer  
  • Assign students to be discussion board leaders where they pose questions and respond to other students
  • Utilize your TAs to help manage online discussions and provide feedback to students
  • The more fun and engaging it is, the more students will be excited to participate, and therefore learn! 

  
  

  How to Grade:  

  • Establish clear guidelines about quality and quantity.  
  • A grading rubric is a great tool that helps you quickly and fairly evaluate the post each week, and it communicates to the students what you are looking for 

  Sample Discussion Board Rubric

• Multiple Short Answer/Essay Assignments

  This will allow you to monitor their progress and give frequent feedback. Long-term retention is strengthened when students make mistakes and then correct them. This type of assignment gives students plenty of room to try out new approaches and demonstrate growth.

  Ideas: 

  • Ask for weekly summaries of big ideas  
  • Give them options on how they can respond - text, audio, video, on-going blog or website 
  • Assign a few well-designed problems to work out and ask students to include their thought process (quality over quantity – this is good for you AND good for them!)  
  • If it needs to be worked out on paper, they can take a picture and submit that to an Assignment link or Discussion Board with an explanation 
  • Mix it up: have them collaborate with partners or in small groups
  • Assignments in Brightspace can connect toTurnitin;  softwares that check student work for published matches.
• Authentic Assessments

  Have your students focus on real-world application of the information from their discipline.

  • Video presentations usingVoiceThread:students can upload a PowerPoint and add video/audio comments to narrate them 
  • DoIT VoiceThread Support Page
  • Make an  e-Portfolio
  • Reflections (credit: University of Birmingham)
  • Make a webpage/wiki -Google Sites 

  Additional resource:Authentic Assessment Toolbox, Jonathan Mueller

• Application Assessments

  Have your students apply key concepts from your discipline to analyze information.

  • Case study analysis
  • Data/graph analysis
  • Create graphs or figures using supplied data. These can also be uploaded to the discussion board.
  • Analysis or critique of a performance, piece of artwork, poem, chapter, etc.
  • Write a meaningful paragraph with key terms provided
  • Drawings to illustrate concepts and connections
• Resource Development Assessments

  Have your students create a resource that can be used for the class in the future or as an example of resources that will be needed in the discipline. 

  • Supply key terms and have students connect them 
  • Create concept maps with tools such as Canva or LucidChart
  • Student created abstracts, summaries, infographics (with  Canva or  Piktochart)
  • Literature reviews, annotated bibliographies
  • Research or project proposals 
  • Students create test and/or quiz questions and discussion board questions
• Written Assessments

  Problem sets can be done on paper, then students can take a photo or scan with one of the following apps and send it to you: 

  • Notes app (iPhone)
  • Adobe Scan
  • Microsoft Office Lens
  • Scannable (iPhone)