e-Assessment and Feedback
with BlackBoard
Distributed Learning Unit
The University of Manchester
Semester 1 2007
Course Version 1.0
e-Assessment and Feedback with Blackboard
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Training Manual Version 1.0
Last modified 5 October 2007
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e-Assessment and Feedback with Blackboard
Workshop Programme
1
Registration
2
Presentation on e-assessment and feedback with Blackboard
3
Practical activities
4
Demonstration of the Grade book tool, Respondus and Turnitin
5
Practical Work continued
6
Group feedback and questions
7
Close
Duration 3 hours
What this session covers and who is it for?
This session will provide hands on experience of the tools used for assessing
learners in Blackboard. It is expected that you will have already attended one of
the introductory training courses on Blackboard. Familiarity with the assessment
tools in WebCT Campus Edition 4.1 would be helpful, but is not essential.
The session will appeal to staff who are involved in the assessment process at any
stage and particularly those who are engaged in the design of online learning
resources, assignments, assessments, online assignments and in providing feedback
to learners online. The course also includes an exercise on using Turnitin, the
plagiarism detection service.
Access to the Course after the training
You will be working in two Blackboard Courses, one in student mode and another as
a designer. The access to the designer course will be limited as the training
courses need to be re-cycled for other users. The maximum time you will have
access to the design course will be two weeks after the course. By then you will
have had ample time to save any work done and import it into your own courses.
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Contents
Aims and Learning Outcomes
6
Introduction
9
Task 1
Log in to Blackboard
11
Task 2
e-Assessment & Feedback Online Resource
15
Task 3
Blackboard Assessments
17
Task 4
Downloading and completing assignments
23
Task 5
Creating your own assignments
27
Task 6
Creating quizzes, surveys and self tests
37
Task 7
Creating a new quiz from a question bank
55
Task 8
Create a quiz using Respondus
59
Task 9
Uploading a Respondus Quiz to Blackboard
69
Task 10
Student Tools in Blackboard
75
Task 11
Instructor tools in Blackboard
77
Task 12
Using Turnitin with Blackboard
105
Appendix
Task 13: (Optional) Respondus Equation Editor
Multiple choice question design sheets
Online Resource supporting this course
Resources
Post Training Action Plan
Norman Gealy’s paper on designing multiple-choice questions
Blackboard Terminology
Reference List
Help Sheets
Copyright
Copyright © Distributed Learning, The University of Manchester 2007
Author:
Mike Smith,
The Distributed Learning Unit,
The University of Manchester,
186 Waterloo Place,
Oxford Road,
Manchester
M13 9GP
michael.smith@manchester.ac.uk
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5
0161 30 66457
e-Assessment and Feedback with Blackboard
Aims and Learning Outcomes
The aim of this training course is to evaluate the use of the tools available in
Blackboard to support the assessment process.
When you have completed the course you should be able to;
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Consider the strengths and weaknesses of online assessment,
Understand the terminology, methods, strategies and models associated with
online assessment,
Understand the importance of providing comprehensive feedback for eassessments,
Appreciate the opportunities Blackboard can offer in supporting assessment,
Plan assessment activities into an online course,
Identify other software tools that are available for supporting assessment
activities,
Identify Blackboard’s different assessment tools,
Create questions for quizzes, surveys and self tests in Blackboard,
Add a quiz question to a bank,
Create a quiz using Respondus and import this into Blackboard
Produce and upload a new assignment to an online course and give feedback
to a student,
Use Blackboard’s Instructor tools such as the assessment manager, marking
tools, grade book and selective release,
Grade a student discussion, and group assessment,
Use Blackboard’s student tools regarding uploading assignments and
checking grades,
Submit an assignment to Turnitin and check for plagiarism.
Pre-requisites
This is a level two course and has been produced for staff who are involved with
the e-Assessment process and who are Blackboard users.
You ideally should have completed one of the Level 1 ‘Introduction to
Blackboard’ courses before taking this course.
You will need to be familiar with the Blackboard interface, Blackboard’s learning
context hierarchy and some knowledge of devising online assessments and
assessments would be an advantage.
You will need a University of Manchester network username and password to study
the course after the workshop session. Please contact the course tutor if you don’t
have this.
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Further training opportunities
In developing your understanding and experience of using Blackboard further, the
Distributed Learning Unit provides a series of courses to support you. Please refer
to our website below to book a course and for more information on our training
courses and support facilities we provide for staff.
Website: http://www.campus.manchester.ac.uk/elearning/
e-mail for enquiries dl.courses @manchester.ac.uk
Staff development courses available from Distributed Learning for
Blackboard
Where you see the mouse icon it refers to a learner activity.
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Staff Development Opportunities for
BlackBoard in 2007- 08
Core programme
Blackboard
Course Migration
WebCT to Bb
Blackboard
e-Assessment &
Feedback
Blackboard
Building your
Course
Available in 2008
Blackboard
Teaching and
Communicating
Blackboard
Introduction to the
Learning Environment
Blackboard
Introduction
for WebCT Users
Notes
There are two introductory level courses. One course is for experienced
WebCT users and provides an update while the other is for those who are new
to the sphere of online learning and working with virtual learning
environments. Following on from the Introductory courses there are three
courses that concentrate on the specifics of Blackboard; Building your Course,
e-Assessment and Feedback and lastly, using Blackboard for supporting
Teaching and Communication.
The Migration course will be available in 2008 for staff who are involved in
transferring existing WebCT courses across to Blackboard. It is advisable that
applicants will have completed the Blackboard Build course to attend this
course though this is not compulsory.
For more information, contact; dl.courses@manchester.ac.uk
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Introduction
Welcome to the course.
From its early uses in the 1970s for checking optical (pencil) mark based
examination papers, computer based assessment has diversified and become a
much bigger and more common concern. The term e-Assessment can be described
as,
“the end-to-end electronic processes where ICT is used for the
presentation of assessment and the recording of responses.” (JISC, 2006)
You will find e-Assessment taking place in society in all kinds of places; television
game shows, the driving theory test, public service entrance exams and at all
levels in education for diagnostic, formative and summative assessment.
The introduction of Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) from the mid 1990s
onwards, brought together assessment with information management functions so
tracking and record keeping could be integrated. With the availability of broadband
links and faster networks, with VLEs staff could assess large student groups
simultaneously and provide instant feedback and results.
This course is about using and evaluating Blackboard’s e-Assessment tools and
services to support e-Learning. The course itself has FOUR components. There is
the workshop today where you will carry out some practical activities with
Blackboard in the roles of learner, designer and as a tutor.
This training pack accompanies the workshop, but if you don’t manage to complete
all the practical tasks in the workshop, you can log into the Blackboard server,
access the course and complete the tasks in your own time.
There are also TWO Blackboard online courses. One course is called the Online
Resource that you have student access to. This is intended as a repository for eAssessment information. You will be trying out some assessments in this course in
student mode. You will have long-term access to this resource for reference and it
will be updated regularly with new information on e-Assessment. There is also a
discussion forum for you to post messages and discuss e-Assessment issues with
colleagues.
The other online course you have access to is named e-assessment and feedback
with names from Alpha to Zulu. This course will give you designer and teach
access allowing you to build, amend and edit assignments, quizzes, self-tests and
surveys in Blackboard. You will have access to this course for two weeks after the
workshop until we need to recycle it again for use with another student group.
I hope you enjoy the course today and find it useful.
Best wishes
Mike Smith, Course Author, Distributed Learning, September 2007.
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Task 1: Log in to Blackboard
For the workshop today you will need to access the following web address.
https://blackboard.manchester.ac.uk
This is the Blackboard Production Server.
Task 1.1
Enter the address above into Internet Explorer on your PC. You will then be asked
for a username and password for today’s course. This should be your normal
network user name and password, if not the tutor will inform you otherwise.
One of the first tasks you have to do when setting up your PC to use Blackboard is
to run a Browser Check to check that Popups are not blocked and that Java is
enabled on your PC.
You are going to do this next.
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Configuring your computer
Having entered the URL for the Blackboard server, the first page you see is the
Blackboard Learning System Log In page shown in figure 1.1.
Task 1.2
Check Browser links
(both do same
function)
Check your Web Browser
Figure 1.1
The first thing you need to do when using Blackboard, is to check that your Web Browser
settings are compatible so you can use all of Blackboard’s functions.
Blackboard will display a warning message if you are using an unsupported web browser,
as it provides automatic and manual web browser checking. The automatic browser check
occurs only upon your first access to the Log In page.
Clicking On either the Check Browser button or the top right-hand link should work.
Figure 1.2 shows the browser check
results for your computer.
The checks are to ensure that
Blackboard is compatible with your
computer. Checks include,
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Browser type
Cookies
JavaScript
Pop-Up Blocker
Java
Scroll up and down the box. Try
this now.
If you see any boxes that are
crossed in red, (like this)
click on the link for the item which
appears under it.
If all your boxes have green ticks in
them your computer is
‘Blackboard-ready’!
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Figure 1.2
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e-Assessment and Feedback with Blackboard
1.3
Allowing Pop-Ups
(Ignore this stage if you had a green tick rather than a red cross)
If your results on the browser check showed that you had pop-ups blocked,
you will need to disable this feature in your web browser.
In Internet Explorer, in the (top)
menu bar, go to,
Tools, Internet Options, then
select the Privacy tab.
At the bottom of the dialogue
box you will see that the Pop-Up
blocker box is checked as shown
in Figure three.
If you see a small tick in the
Block pop-ups box (as shown
here in figure 1.3), click in the
box to remove it.
Click the Apply button and then
the OK button to make the
changes.
Block Pop-Ups box
Figure 1.3
Any changes you make may not show up on the check browser menu immediately.
The browser should be OK now and any changes would take effect on logging out
and re-starting which we don’t want to do at this stage.
Having disabled the pop-up blocker, you may still get a message on your screen as
shown in figure 1.4, if so just click OK.
Figure 1.4
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Task 1.4
Enabling JavaScript and Java
Unless you have changed its security settings, your PC will probably already run
JavaScript. Your PC may also have the Java Virtual machine software provided by
Microsoft already installed.
JavaScript is important to have enabled since this facility runs things like the Chat
facility in Blackboard and the HTML Editor. If your computer can already run a
Chat programme then probably Java is already installed. If not, you can download
the Java software from the Sun site as shown in figure 1.5.
If you need the Java
software on your
computer, click on the
link which is given on
the check browser menu
under the Java or
JavaScript tick box icon.
If you click here you will
be taken to the Sun site
to start the download
procedure.
Figure 1.5
Once you have checked all your settings, return to the login screen as shown
in figure 1.6 and log in!
Figure 1.6
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Task 2: e-Assessment & Feedback Online Resource
Once you have logged into Blackboard, you should see in your Course List (in the
centre of your screen) two courses. One is named e-Assessment and Feedback
Online Resource. (Don’t worry if your screen looks slightly different to what you
see in figure 2.1).
Figure 2.1
Click On the link to the Online Resource Blackboard course.
Next, Click On the home page of the Online Resource and enter the course.
You should see the course in Student View as shown in figure 2.2.
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Figure 2.2
There are SIX areas to the course as you can see.
Click On each of the icons in turn to see what is available. Have a look in
the Weblinks section and the Reference section. You will be taking part in
one of the quizzes and a self-test in the next task.
Communication:
e-Assessments :
Reference:
Weblinks:
Media:
Resources:
contains a discussion forum and a live chat room.
contains a number of sample quizzes, an assignment, self-test
and a survey.
contains links to useful reference documents on e-Assessment.
contains a number of links to assessment software and tools
You will find associated with e-Assessment.
Contains audio-visual materials and files to support the course.
This section is empty at present but will become a test bank
for questions as Blackboard develops.
You will have access to the Online Resource after the course that will enable you to
log in and post messages, find out about any new resources and access papers and
journal articles on e-Assessment.
That completes the task, well done.
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Task 3: Blackboard Assessments
Revision
Blackboard Roles
Figure 3.1
If you attended one of the Blackboard introduction training courses, you will
remember that there are three tabs in Blackboard. Build – for Designers, Teach –
for Tutors and Student View. You will also have learned that you cannot be a
Student on a course if you are already a Designer or Teacher.
You can only design and write assessments while in Build mode. In Teach mode
you can collect and mark student work, give feedback to learners, award grades,
communicate with learners and set up groups.
3.1
Assessments and Assignments
Blackboard uses TWO terms associated with online assessment. These terms are
Assessments and Assignments and are outlined in table 3.1
Type
Format
Assessment
Quiz
Assessment
Survey
Assessment
Self-test
Assignment
Text with
attachments
Assignment
Website / HTML
Example
Multiple-question tests. Score is
graded. (Paragraph questions are
manually marked)
Multiple-questions. Used to gather
student responses. Not graded.
Multiple-questions. Self-answer
questions. Not graded & feedback
direct.
Essays, reports, Assignments. Work
is word-processed and submitted by
the student.
Suite of linked web pages submitted
as a zip file.
Marking
Automatic
Automatic
Automatic
Manual
Manual
Table 3.1
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Types of Assessments
You can create THREE types of assessment in Blackboard.
Assessment type
Quiz
Survey
Used for
Online assessments for which
grades are assigned.
Quizzes are graded automatically
unless they contain paragraph
questions, which must be graded
manually by the instructor or
teaching assistant.
Anonymous online assessments for
which no grades are assigned.
While instructors can see whether
students have completed a survey
in the Grade Book, the survey
submissions themselves are
anonymous and no score is
recorded.
Online assessments that allow
students to test their own
knowledge of course content.
Self test
Self-tests are purely for student
benefit; grades are NOT recorded
in the Grade Book.
Example
Could be any form of
diagnostic, formative or
summative assessment.
Surveys can canvas
students opinions on an
issue covered in class.
Responses can be
aggregated.
Self-answer questions,
SAQs and Self-tests that
check the students own
understanding of their
learning in the online
learning modules.
Table 3.2
Quiz
In the Online Resource, you are going to have a go at one of the quizzes that is in
the e-Assessment area on the course you looked at in Task 2.
Click On the e-Assessments icon in the Online Resource.
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Figure 3.2
Click On the icon, ‘General Knowledge Quiz 1’ and work through the
multiple-choice questions given in the quiz. (Please note – the quiz may
appear in a different position on your screen than shown here.)
Work through each question and Click On the SAVE button under each
question to save your responses. When you have completed all the
questions, Click On, > Finish then Save and your quiz will be completed.
When complete, Click On, Submit, then the View Attempt Button.
You will see your score at the top of the page and if you scroll down the screen you
will see your answers, the correct answers indicated with a green tick and the
feedback given.
This example shows how Blackboard provides student feedback. Spend a few
minutes becoming accustomed to the way feedback is presented.
To check on where your grade for the quiz was recorded, Click On the My
Grades button in My Tools. You should see your grade recorded as shown in
figure 3.3.
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Score given here
My Grades in Student View
Figure 3.3
The quiz you have just taken shows just one example of the nine different types of
question that are available with Blackboard. These are;
1. Multiple-choice (multiple-response is also available, so 10 types!)
2. Matching
3. Calculated answer (where each students gets a different randomised
question)
4. Short-Answer (using keywords and combinations of these)
5. Paragraph
(these questions are manually marked)
6. True-false
7. Fill-in-the-blank
8. Jumbled sentence
9. Combination
Note: A quiz containing a Paragraph type question WILL NOT be graded instantly
as the other quiz question types. It will appear as partially marked and requires
the tutor to mark the question and add a score manually for it.
We will look in more depth at the question types and how to construct these later
when you have designer access on another course.
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(Optional Practical Exercise)
To see how all NINE quiz questions function – see the Quiz, Vistas NINE
different question types. (More on how to construct different question
types later.)
Survey
An example of a Blackboard’s Survey tool is given in the Online Resource.
In e-Assessments, Click On, Sample Survey 1.
There are only two questions. Answer these, Click On, Save All and Finish
to submit your Survey. Your answers won’t appear in your My Grades. However as
a tutor on the course, you could investigate what responses student had made. A
useful means of checking if students have understood a particular concept.
Figure 3.4 shows under the Teach tool, five students that have completed the
survey, with anonymous responses and a record of what each student selected.
More on the Grade Book later in the course.
Figure 3.4
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Self Test
Self Test questions are built in the same way as quizzes but they are ungraded and
are used by students to check their own progress.
An example of a Blackboard Self Test is given in the Online Resource.
In e-Assessments, Click On, Sample Self Test 1.
There are two questions and as you can see in figure 3.5, self-tests operate
slightly different to quiz questions as you have a Check Answer button and a
Help button also. Complete the two questions and have a look at the
feedback you are presented with. Click On, Help to see what help options
appear.
Figure 3.5
That completes what Blackboard’s three assessment types look like from a student
perspective. We’ll look next at Blackboard assignments.
That completes the task, well done.
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Task 4: Downloading & submitting an assignment
In the Online Resource, Click On the e-Assessments icon and locate Sample
Assignment 1.
There are two types of assignment available in Blackboard, text and website.
1.
Text Type Assignments
Sample Assignment 1 is a text type assignment.
Figure 4.1
A student could type their response to the question in the Submission box given,
or, and more often, would attach say a Word .doc file and then click the submit
button. They could also add a comment to the assignment in the box given below.
Answer the assignment question given by just adding one sentence in the
Submission box before finally Clicking On, Submit. (Bottom of page)
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The Tutor would need time to manually mark and return this to you, so you won’t
see anything entered in your My Grades immediately.
The tutor would however now see any assignments that had been submitted as
shown in figure 4.2 in the Assignment Dropbox under the Teach tab.
Figure 4.2
Clicking on an assignment would show the assignment and also present the
Feedback comment box as shown in figure 4.3.
Student response.
Attachments here
Tutor comments
Score awarded
Figure 4.3
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2.
Website / HTML based assignments
The second type of assignment is where a student can submit a suite of web pages.
In the Online Resource, Click On the e-Assessments icon and locate Sample
Assignment 2.
File attached
Zip files attached
Looking at this form, you can see in the Instructions section, there is an
attached file. The tutor has decided to provide additional information to
candidates outlining in more detail the assignment brief.
You could Click On this to open it.
The other difference with Website based assignments is the ‘Select Zip File’ text
above the Add Attachment button. This is to indicate that a website submission
should be a zip file that would contain all the .html pages, links and images for the
complete website.
That completes the task, well done.
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Task 5: Creating your own assignments
In Blackboard, return to the My e-learning homepage and in the Course List
you will see a course named e-Assessment and Feedback (XXXX), where
XXXX will be one of 26 phonetic words from Alpha to Zulu.
You will have Designer access to this course for two weeks after today in
order to try out building some of your own assessments and testing these.
Build, Teach and
Student View tabs
Figure 5.1
Click On the image and enter the course. As a designer, you should have
THREE tabs at the top-left of the screen. Click On each of tab in turn to see
the menu-pair set change.
You can also see on the Build interface that you have a toolbar with the ability to,
Add File, Create Folder and Add Content Link.
You don’t have these tools under the Teach or Student tabs. You will use these
tools shortly.
On the right is the Page Options button for changing the layout of the page.
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On entering the course, you should see three icons. Two folders and an icon for a
media library.
Figure 5.2
Click On the e-Assessments folder. It should contain two quizzes titled,
Vistas Nine different Question Types and General Knowledge Quiz 2
You will use both of these in later tasks when we start building quizzes.
The Media Library contains a number of still image and video files which you will
use for developing questions for assignments, quizzes and self tests.
You are now going to build your first assignment
In Build View, Click On the My Assessments folder icon.
Figure 5.3
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When you create a new folder or course, as there is nothing inside it yet, the
instructions you can see in figure 5.3 are displayed. This information box
disappears once you begin to add things, be it an assignment, a file or a URL etc.
Click On the Add Content Link button, then Click On, Assignments,
followed by clicking on the Create Assignment button as shown in
figure 5.4.
Add Content Link Button
Click here to create a new assignment.
If we had created any assignments
elsewhere in the section, they would
appear listed here.
Other items such as
assessments, chat,
discussions etc could all be
added from this menu
Figure 5.4
You should now see the Create Assignment form appear on screen as shown in
figure 5.5. It is quite long so scroll down to see the form in its entirety.
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Assignment title
A short description of the
assignment.
Assignments remain hidden
until they have student or
groups assigned.
Instructions for tackling the
assignment
Add an attachment, say a Word
document or HTML file.
Type of assignment you
want, text based or website
Recipients of the
assignment
Assignment release dates.
Due by and cut off after
which assignments would
not be accepted.
Grading information
Links to Learning Goals
Additional information
for the assignment.
Figure 5.5
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Completing the Create Assignment form
The form is quite detailed, so we’ll go through it bit by bit.
Enter the following details from table 5.1 below into the blank Create
Assignment form.
1
2
Part of form
Title
Description
3
Item Visibility
4
Instructions
5
6
Attachments
Student Submission
format
Assignment
recipients
7
8
Due date
9
10
Cut off date
Grading
11
12
13
14
Grading
Goals
More Options
Publishing
submissions
Section Instruction
notification
15
What to write / do
Victorian Architecture in Manchester
Question 1: Write a report of the architectural style
associated with the main building of The University of
Manchester.
leave for now (you won’t be able to see it
immediately)
The assignment should be word-processed and
submitted as an attachment that is for submission via
BlackBoard. This assignment forms 10% of the overall
continuous assessment score for the Architectural
history module.
none (although you probably would have here)
Text
Decide later – (if you knew this you could enter this
information for your group or individuals.)
(We will return to this section of the form later)
Today’s date +1. Check the corresponding event in
the Calendar tool box
Today’s date +5 This must be after the cut-off date.
Check the – Allow the assignment to be graded box.
Check the – release grades to students in My Grades
Check numeric grade and enter 100
none
Check the - taking back submission box
Check the – only the section instructor can publish
Check the – do not send e-mail notification. (This is to
save time during today’s session, Normally it is useful
to inform staff when a student has submitted.
Table 5.1
That should be enough information as all we need is a short text-based assignment.
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Adding images, links etc – using the HTML editor
If we need to add an image or a weblink to our assignment, or if we want to change
the font or paragraph formatting, as you saw in the example assignment in Task 4
with the Olympic Logo, we need to make use the HTML editor, shown here in figure
5.6.
Text for the
Instructions
box
Weblink, Bookmark and Insert Image
buttons
Figure 5.6
We are going to add an image to the assignment in the Instructions box. As
you can see in figure 5.6, the text for the Instructions is shown.
Click your mouse at the end of “…history module” paragraph in the HTML
editor box. Next, Click On the Insert Image button. You should see the
Insert Image dialogue box appear as shown in figure 5.7.
You have several options here.
For our example, we are going to
load a file that is already in your
Media Library but you could
upload your own image or use an
absolute address if you knew the
URL of where an image is you
want.
Figure 5.7
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Click On the Browse button shown earlier in figure 5.7.
You should see the Get Files box appear as shown in figure 5.8.
Click On the Class Files icon on the left. This is where all the images
and files have been loaded for this section.
(Note: If you wanted to load a different image, you could Click On, My
Computer and find the file you wanted which would then be uploaded into
the My Files area.)
Figure 5.8
Select the image main_building.jpg and Click On, > OK. You need to
complete the information in the bottom half of the Insert Image box shown
in figure 5.7 with the details in table 5.2.
Alt text
Border
Width
Height
The Main Building on Oxford Road
0
120 (pixels)
160 (pixels)
Table 5.2
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Once you have added the image and its details from table 5.2, Click On the
Save button again in the Create Assignment form. The Icon for your new
assignment should now appear in Blackboard as shown in figure 5.9
Figure 5.9
If the assignment is ‘hidden’ it could be for a number of reasons.
The most common being that there are NO assignment recipients.
In Build View, Click On the assignment link and in the Edit Assignment box
(which is just like the Create Assignment box) Check the radio button for All
Students Individually. (See figure 5.10)
Make sure also that the Cut Off Date is after the Due Date. Then Click On,
Save to save the changes made to the assignment.
Figure 5.10
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You will return to the Blackboard course. Your assignment may still appear to be
‘hidden’.
If it is still hidden, you will need to ‘show’ it.
Actionlink menu
Figure 5.11
Figure 5.11 shows the Actionlink menu at the side of the assignment.
Click On this and then Click On, Show Item.
Your assignment icon should now be bold and visible as shown in figure 5.12.
Figure 5.12
If you still cannot see your assignment
If you have any other difficulties in viewing an assignment it will be due to the
settings you have made in the assignment itself. Re-visit the assignment by
clicking on the assignment link and check the information given in the form.
To see what your students would see, Click On the Student View tab in the
course, and your assignment should look like figure 5.13
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That completes the procedure for creating a new assignment.
Figure 5.13
In the Teach Tab, if you Click On the Grade Book tool, you will see the title
of the Victorian Architecture assignment appear listed as shown in figure
5.14. (You may have to scroll right).
We will return to the use of the grade book later on.
That completes the task, well done!
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Figure 5.14
e-Assessment and Feedback with Blackboard
Task 6: Creating quizzes, surveys and self-tests
Return to the My e-learning homepage in the course you have designer access to.
In this task you will create your own Assessments – quizzes, surveys and self-tests
and test these out.
Figure 6.1
Table 3.1 in Task 3 showed the differences between quizzes, surveys and self-tests.
All these can be automatically ‘marked’ by Blackboard, the main difference
between them being the grading, not grading and feedback issues.
We will look first at the different quiz question types.
In Blackboard, enter the course and Click On the e-Assessments folder.
You should see an icon named, ‘Vista’s Nine Different Question types.”
In student mode, go through the quiz to experience the Nine different
question types Blackboard offers.
Quizzes that do not contain paragraph questions are graded automatically after the
student completes the quiz and the grade is immediately added to the Grade Book
column.
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To Create a quiz, survey or self-test, you have to complete the following tasks.
 Create the assessment type you want (quiz, self-test etc.),
 Create and add the questions,
 Apply the assessment settings and release criteria.
To create a new quiz you need to work in Build view.
Click On the Assessments button on the left.
As there are two assessments available in the course already, these will be
listed as shown in figure 6.2
Figure 6.2
Click On the Create Assessment button shown in figure 6.2.
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Figure 6.3
The Create Assessment form will then appear as shown in figure 6.3
Before filling in the details, take a look at this form.
The Item Visibility radio button is automatically set to Hide Item. You cannot
change this until you have created your assignment and added learners to it, so you
will have to leave this set as it is. Later we will ‘Show’ the item and it will appear
in bold on your screen.
You can also see that the radio button under Question Type is set to Quiz as a
default, so you would need to change this to Survey or Self-Test if you wanted to
here.
Also under template, the default setting is set to ‘Do not base on an existing
assessment.’
We will produce a quiz first so leave the radio button settings on the form as they
are for now.
In the assessment Title, type in,
End of module Quiz
Note that as you do this, the same text will appear in the Grade Book Column
name.
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In the Description box type in,
This quiz tests the material covered in module 1 of the course.
Click On the Save button at the bottom of the form.
You will be directed back to the Assessments screen and the name of your new
assessment will now be listed, as shown in figure 6.4.
Figure 6.4
The quiz has now been created and you now need to populate it with questions.
To see the new quiz (partially hidden remember) on your screen we need to add it
to where we want it in the course.
We are going to add it to your My Assessments folder.
Figure 6.5
Double-Click On the My assessments folder shown in figure 6.5.
Next, Click On the Add Content Link button, then > Assessments.
Click On the ‘End of Module Quiz’ then Click On, Add Selected.
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Figure 6.6
You should see your new quiz icon appear on the screen as shown in figure 6.6.
Let’s add the first question.
Click On the End of Module Quiz link shown in figure 6.6.
Figure 6.7
As you have not created any questions yet, there are none in your assessment. If
you had created other assessments elsewhere in the course you could click on Add
to Assessment and add the questions from any Existing Questions, or from a
Question Set.
Blackboard allows you to create a new quiz easily by letting you add questions from
existing quizzes. You can import questions and quizzes from other sections and
generate large question banks to select from if you wish.
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Click On the Create Questions button shown in figure 6.7 and you will be
presented with the NINE options shown in figure 6.8.
You are going to create first a multiple-choice question.
Click On, the Multiple Choice option shown in figure 6.8.
Figure 6.8
The Multiple Choice Question form will then appear as shown in figure 6.9
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Question title
Note that the HTML tool is
available here
The question goes here
with any images, links
added also.
Note here in select
mode, the use of one or
multiple answers.
Your distractors go here
along with one option
for the correct
response. Add the
feedback also.
The values for ALL
distractors must all add
up to 100%.
Any more options can
be added to the four
here
You decide here the
layout you want,
the option numbering
and scoring
Figure 6.9
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There is another section to the form under More Options. These are shown in
figure 6.10. You will have to Click On, More Options to see this section.
General feedback on the
question is made
available to the learner
from my Grades.
You can add here criteria
for adding your question
to a database
The Save Button
Figure 6.10
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As you can see there are a lot of sections to fill out.
Fill in the Create Question form with the details shown in Table 6.1
1
2
3
Part of form
Title
Question Text
Image
4
5a
5b
Select Mode
Answer 1
Feedback
5c
5d
6a
6b
Correct response
Value
Answer 2
Feedback
(leave blank)
(0%)
210
6c
6d
7a
7b
7c
7d
8a
8b
Correct response
Value
Answer 3
Feedback
Correct response
Value
Answer 4
Feedback
(leave blank)
(0%)
240
8c
8d
Correct response
Value
(leave blank)
(0%)
9
10
11
Answer layout
Answer labels
Randomise
answer order
Grading scheme
Negative scoring
(Vertical)
(Letters a, b, c,)
(no)
12
13
14
More Options
General Feedback
Section Designer
Category
What to write / (do)
Natural Satellites in the Solar System
How many moons are there in our solar system?
Click On,> Browse and find the file titled;
The_Planets.jpg and insert this.
(One answer)
165
There are 165 moons that orbit the planets. The correct figure is
240 moons.
There are 165 moons that orbit the planets and a total of 240
known moons in the solar system.
Well done, that’s correct. There are 240 moons in total.
(Check the box here)
(100%)
27
That’s incorrect. There are 165 moons that circle the planets and
240 moons in the solar system in total.
Cumulative
(no)
If you incorrectly answered this question, go to WikiPedia and
read the paper on Natural satellites.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_satellite
(blank)
(leave set as - specify and existing category)
Table 6.1
When you have added all the information, (and the image) Click On the Save
button to save the question.
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If you Click On the Preview Button, you should see how your question will when
you run the quiz.
After clicking on Save, you should now see your question added to the End of
Module Quiz as shown in figure 6.11.
Action Menu
Figure 6.11
Click On the Action Menu next to the Natural Satellites question and
Preview your question which will be shown as in figure 6.12.
As you can see the image is presented
at the top of the question and the
responses below.
Figure 6.12
The image used here is with agreement
from the WikiMedia Commons site and it
has been edited to fit 120 x 100 pixels. (File
size is approximately 30k)
That exercise covered how to write a single multiple-choice question and add this
to a quiz that you called End of Module Quiz. The other eight types of question
follow a similar procedure and the best place to see examples of these are through
Blackboard’s Help link.
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Click On the Help link at the top right of your screen and you will see a
screen similar to that shown in figure 6.13.
This facility is very useful and shows how you can create all the other eight
types of Quiz question in Blackboard.
The Online Help files have a
number of topics as you can
see here. If you click on the
link you want it will take you
step by step what you want
to do.
Figure 6.13.
Remember that you can only write and add questions in Build View. And as your
quiz has not been released to students yet, it will remain ‘Hidden’ although you
can Preview any questions you write to see what they look like and re-edit them if
necessary.
I want you next to add a second multiple-choice question yourself to the End Of
Module Quiz.
The information for it is presented in table 6.2.
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Question 2
1
2
3
4
5a
5b
5c
5d
6a
6b
6c
6d
7a
7b
7c
7d
8a
8b
8c
8d
9
10
11
12
13
14
Part of form
Title
Question Text
Image
Select Mode
Answer 1
Feedback
Correct response
Value
Answer 2
Feedback
Correct response
Value
Answer 3
Feedback
Correct response
Value
Answer 4
Feedback
Correct response
Value
What to write / (do)
Comets
Which element is NOT found within a Comet?
Comet_Hale_Bopp.jpg
(Browse for it)
(One answer)
Ice
Answer layout
Answer labels
Randomise
answer order
Grading scheme
Negative scoring
(Vertical)
(Letters a, b, c,)
(no)
More Options
General Feedback
Section Designer
Category
No, Comets are made up of Ice, Dust and Rock.
(leave blank)
(0%)
Dust
No, Comets are made up of Ice, Dust and Rock.
(leave blank)
(0%)
Rock
No, Comets are made up of Ice, Dust and Rock.
(leave blank)
(0%)
Iron
Correct. Iron is not normally associated with Comets.
(Check the box here)
(100%)
Cumulative
(no)
For further information on Comets, search on Comet in
WikiPedia at www.wikipedia.com
(blank)
(leave set as - specify and existing category)
Table 6.2
Save your question. It should look something like figure 6.14.
Feel free to change your question if you wish, or write a different one. It’s all
about becoming familiar with the question creator at this stage.
You should now have TWO questions in your End of Module Quiz.
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Again, the picture here is taken
from the WikiMedia site and is
available to use under the
Creative Commons agreement.
Figure 6.14
Once your quiz is complete you can show it to the audience.
Click On the Action Menu on the End of Module Quiz as shown in figure
6.15, and Click On, > Show.
Action Menu
Figure 6.15
Switch to the Teach or Student Tab and the End of Module Quiz icon should now
appear in bold. If you Click On the End of Module Quiz icon now, you should be
able to access the quiz which should appear something like figure 6.16.
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You should see your
two questions (if you
scroll down) and the
information given on
the time allowed for
the test and what
questions remain
unanswered.
Figure 6.16.
Scroll down to see your other
question
In Student mode, answer the TWO questions to test the quiz. Remember to
SAVE your answers as you go along, or, you can Click On the SAVE ALL
button at the end.
In task seven we will use these TWO questions along with some others to form a
new quiz based on Blackboards capability for making a new quiz from a question
bank.
Before we do that, we will have a look at creating a self test.
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Task 6B Creating Self-Tests and Surveys
The procedure for creating self-tests and surveys is almost the same as what you
have just gone through to create a quiz.
We are going to create a self-test.
In the same course as you used in the earlier part of task 6, in Build
View, navigate to the My Assessments folder as shown in figure 6.17.
Figure 6.17
In the Course Tools on the left, Click On, > Assessments, then Create
Assessment.
When the form appears, check the radio button for Self test as shown in
figure 6.18.
Figure 6.18
Go back up the form and type in the Title for the self-test. It is called,
Astronomy Self-test 1
The Description of the self-test is,
This self test is for students to check their own progress following the
completion of the Astronomy Module.
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Once you have added these, Click On the Save button.
You should now see that a new assessment has been added which is a self-test with
unlimited duration as shown in figure 6.19.
Figure 6.19
The next stage is similar to what you did in the earlier task, namely creating
questions. We will just add one, a true-false question this time.
Click On, the Create Questions button and select, the True-False
question type.
True-False questions are much shorter forms than multiple-choice as shown in
figure 6.20.
True / False
Figure 6.20
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Fill in the form with the information given in table 6.3.
1
2
Part of form
Title
Question Text
3
Image
4
5
Answer
More Options
General Feedback
Section Designer
Category
What to write / (do)
Jodrell Bank
Select whether the following statement is true or
false.
The Lovell telescope at Jodrell Bank Observatory is an
example of a Radar Telescope.
Lovell_telescope.jpg Browse for it. Look in ‘Class
Files’ also as these are files that are accessible to the
course you are currently working in. (There is also a
copy in the media folder if you struggle here).
select (false)
(Click the radio button)
The main telescope at Jodrell Bank is the Lovell
Observatory which uses a Radio Telescope, not a
Radar telescope.
(blank)
(leave set as - specify and existing category)
Table 6.3
Once you have saved your question, Click On the action menu and Preview it.
It should look something like figure 6.21.
With true or false or any type of
question, be sure to state at the
beginning what you want the
student to do, then follow it with
the question itself.
Note also the two buttons that
appear, Grade and Close. These
are just the same as when you
create a quiz. The only
difference is the grade is not
entered in the Grade book.
Figure 6.21
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Add a question of your own to the Self Test.
Once you have written and added the question, you will have to ‘Show’ the Self
Test. Look back at the previous example if you are unsure how to do this.
(See figure 6.15)
Figure 6.22
Once you have ‘Shown’ the self test, switch to Student View and run the self-test
to see how it functions.
Surveys
A Survey is an online questionnaire that students complete and submit
anonymously. You can build a survey into a course to get an idea of how students
are coping with the course, but not allocate any marks. A survey will be recorded
as completed in the Grade Book after it is submitted. You can use Surveys to allow
students to give feedback or opinions.
Summary
You have produced a quiz and a self-test in this task. As each question you write in
Blackboard is produced individually, you have the ability to mix and match
questions from a bank that Blackboard holds, containing all your questions. You
can copy, zip and export questions or complete quizzes if you wish and use them in
other online courses.
The next task looks at creating a quiz from a bank of questions.
That completes the task, well done!
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Task 7: Creating a new quiz from a question bank
A useful facility of Blackboard is once you have created a question or a quiz, you
can re-use it on other Blackboard courses or in quizzes on similar VLEs that that
meet the IMS – QTI interoperability standards.
(For more details on IMS QTI standards please see http://assessment.cetis.ac.uk/FAQs/FAQs/Basics/Basics%20home)
It takes time to write and develop good questions, but once you have produced
them they can be used again and again.
In this task you are going to create a new quiz from some existing content.
In the course you have designer access to, Click On, the Assessments
button, in the toolbar on the left in Course Tools.
You should see all the assessments associated with the course shown as in figure
7.1.
Figure 7.1
Click On the Go To Question Database… button.
You should see the complete list of all the questions from all the Assessments you
have in your course as shown in figure 7.2.
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Figure 7.2
Scroll up and down the form and find the questions you created in the tasks you
completed earlier. They should be on the list somewhere.
At the top-right, you can see two buttons, Category View and Question View.
Click On, Question View. This will re-order the questions in alphabetical
order by question title as you can see in figure 7.3.
Figure 7.3
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At the bottom of the question database is a button for Export Questions.
If you wanted to export your individual questions to another course, you could do
this here, but for now, we will create our new quiz based on the questions here.
(See the fact sheet in the Appendix on how to export and import content)
Let’s create the new quiz.
Go back to Build View and navigate to the My Assessments folder.
Click On the Assessments button under Course Tools on the left.
Click On, Create Assessment. Call the title of the new assessment
New Test Quiz.
In the Description box enter,
A quiz created from other questions in the course database.
Assessment type
Quiz
Template
Check the box – Base on an existing assessment.
From the drop-down list, select General Knowledge Quiz 2
Click On the SAVE button at the bottom of the form.
OK, that’s created a new assessment called New Test Quiz and it’s based on the
same questions as those in General Knowledge Quiz 2.
Click On the link for your New Test Quiz and see the 20 questions.
Using the check boxes in the left-hand column, select any TEN questions for
removal.
Click On the Remove button. Your quiz should now only contain 10 questions.
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Click On the Add to Assessment button.
Figure 7.4
As shown in figure 7.4, a three-item list appears. Select the Existing Questions
option.
The Add Question database appears. Locate and select the three questions,



Comets
Natural Satellites
Jodrell Bank
Click On the Add Selected button.
You should now see the three questions you wrote added to the New Test Quiz
assessment.
Practice adding and removing questions from the New Test Quiz assessment so you
become familiar with the process.
That completes the task, well done!
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Task 8: Creating a quiz using Respondus
Respondus is a third party assessment tool that can be used offline to create
assessments and then import these into Blackboard. The University of Manchester
have a site licence for Respondus and more details can be found at
http://www.respondus.com/products/respondus.shtml
There are a number of training videos that you can access on the Respondus
website that cover a range of tasks that Respondus is capable of. See,
http://www.respondus.com/products/demos.shtml
Task 8 will make you familiar with the Respondus environment by building a short
quiz.
Open the Respondus software on your computer. In the training suite this is
normally found by clicking
Start > Core Programs > Learning and Teaching > Respondus 3.5
Make sure this box is
set to
WebCT 6 / Vista 4
Figure 8.1 Respondus
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The first thing to set when using Respondus is the platform you are working on.
This is called the Current Personality. See figure 8.1
For Blackboard, you need to be working in WebCT 6 / Vista 4
If this is not showing in the window, Click On the drop-down arrow on the right of
the box and change it.
If you are new to Respondus, there are TWO very good quizzes that are already set
up for you called,

Respondus Introduction and

World History
To access these, Click On the Open button in Respondus. Select the first
quiz, World History and Click On, Open.
Figure 8.2
You should see the Edit screen appear as shown above in figure 8.2.
Click On the Preview and Publish tab at the top, followed by Preview the File.
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You should then see the multiple-choice test appear in Preview mode starting at
question 1 as shown in figure 8.3. Navigation for the quiz is given at the top of the
screen.
Navigation buttons
Figure 8.3
Work your way through the quiz just to see how the questions are laid out and
when you have finished Click On, Close.
So, having looked at how Respondus feels as a student, let’s put together a couple
of questions of our own and publish these as a new Respondus test.
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Click On the Start tab in Respondus to take you back to the opening page.
Click On the Create button. You should see the dialogue box appear shown
in figure 8.4.
Figure 8.4
Name the file,
Respondustest1
In the Description just add,
A short multiple-choice quiz.
As we are producing an Exam, make sure that the radio button is checked.
Finally, Click On the OK button.
You should now see the Edit Questions screen appear as shown in figure 8.5
Familiarise yourself with the screen.
Down the left are buttons for creating different question types. At the bottom of
the screen is the Question list which has all the questions you have written.
The central area of the screen is the form for completing your question.
Scroll down the answers box and you will see that the responses go from A – Z.
Note that there are SIX parts to the form.
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Figure 8.5
Click On the Enable Feedback check box on the left. You will see that part
three of the form, the Answers section now has an
underneath each Answer.
‘ f ’ for feedback row
Creating a New Respondus Quiz from other Quizzes
You have the option available to Copy from another file (the button on the left)
which allows you to assemble your own quiz from other quizzes like you did in Task
7. We will leave this for now as you need to create a quiz of your own.
This process is fairly straightforward and shows that you can cut and paste
questions created in any other quizzes you have.
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Table 8.1 gives the question that you are going to write. Enter this information
into Respondus.
1
2
3
4
5
6
Part of form
Title of Question
Question Wording
Answers
A
f
B
f
C
f
D
f
General Feedback
Randomize
Select Correct
Answer
Point Value
Add to end of list
/ Insert Into List
What to write / (do)
Mount Olympus Mons
Mount Olympus Mons is the tallest known volcano in
our solar system. Which planet can it be found on?
Jupiter
No, that’s not correct.
Earth
NO, that’s not correct.
Venus
No, that’s not correct.
Mars
Well done, that is the correct answer.
Most planets in the solar system have volcanoes. For
further information about volcanoes and how they
develop, please refer to, Jelle Zeilinga de Boer's
book,
Volcanoes in Human History: The Far-Reaching
Effects of Major Eruptions.
(leave the box unchecked)
Answer D
10
Click On the Add to end of List button
Table 8.1
Click On the Preview button. Your question should now appear on screen in
preview mode as shown in figure 8.6.
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Figure 8.6
Also, you should see your question appear in the Question List at the bottom of the
screen as shown in figure 8.7.
Figure 8.7
OK, now create your second question. Let’s make this a True-False type question.
1
2
3
*
*
Part of form
Question Type
Title of Question
Question Wording
Select correct
answer
True Feedback
False feedback
General Feedback
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True / False Question
The Mercury 13
Select either true or false for the statement below.
In the American space programme of the 1960s, the
Mercury 13 were a group of women who were
screened for astronaut training.
Check the True radio button
That is the correct answer, well done.
That is not the correct answer
During the 1960s, a group of women were selected to
undertake some of the tests that male astronauts had
taken. They became known as, “The Mercury 13.” See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_13
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5
6
for more details
Point Value
10
Add to end of list Click On the Add to end of List button
/ Insert Into List
Table 8.2
* make sure you have checked the Enable Feedback box on the left.
Preview your second question and make sure you have added it to the Question
List at the bottom of the screen. (You should see its title, format and question
wording.)
Click On the SAVE button at the top of the screen.
Your question list should now have two questions in it as shown in figure 8.8.
Figure 8.8
In transferring your quiz to work with Blackboard, you first need to make a few
settings to it.
Click On the Settings Tab in Respondus, and on the left, the Basic &
Availability button shown in figure 8.9
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Figure 8.9
There are a few settings you need to make here. Enter these into the form.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Part of form
What to write / (do)
Description
Item visibility
Question delivery
Question titles
Display Quiz
Quiz duration
Disallow sub.
Attempts
Separation
Randomize sets
Availability
Allow access as
soon as quiz is
published
leave blank
select – show item
deliver all the questions at once
leave unchecked
select – in a new window pop up
unlimited
leave unchecked
select unlimited
enter - 0 minutes
leave unchecked
leave clear – you can set this in Blackboard
check this box
Table 8.3
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Now Click On the SAVE button again to save all the changes.
You have now produced your quiz in Respondus and in the next task you are going
to upload it into Blackboard and publish it.
That completes this task, well done!
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Task 9: Uploading a Respondus quiz to Blackboard
To transfer a quiz from Respondus into Blackboard, you need to follow the
Preview and Publish Wizard. Make sure your Quiz (from the last task it was
Respondus 1) is open in Respondus.
Check first that you are on the correct Current Personality setting in the Start Tab.
It should be set to WebCT 6 / Vista 4.
In Respondus, Click On the Preview and Publish tab as shown in figure
and then Click On the Publish Wizard button as shown in figure 9.1.
Figure 9.1
You will see that there are three parts to the Publish Wizard form.
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In the Publish Wizard form, enter the following information.
1
2
Part of form
What to write / (do)
Type of Publish
Choose an
existing server.
select the – Publish to a single Course radio button
Click On the down arrow and select – add new server
Table 9.1
Another dialogue box will appear as shown in figure 9.2.
Figure 9.2
Click On the - NO, I want to enter the server settings manually option.
Click On the Next button.
Another form will now be presented as shown in figure 9.3
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Figure 9.3
Read the information in Figure 9.3. You need to be logged into Blackboard and
have build access to the course you are going to publish the Respondus Assessment
to.
Part of form
2
3
4
5
6
7
What to write / (do)
In Blackboard, in Build view, access the section (the course)
you have design access to. (alpha, beta, etc)
From your Blackboard course address bar, Copy the URL as
shown in Figure 9.3 Step 2 and Paste this into the box shown
at step 2.
Click On the Extract button and the server, this puts the
URL of the server you are working on in the box.
https://blackboard.manchester.ac.uk
Next, Click On the Institutions button, and select the
University of Manchester
In the Description box enter, Blackboard
In the Username box enter, your username for Blackboard
In the Password box enter your password for Blackboard
Click On the OK button
Table 9.2
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The Publish Wizard puts up the next dialogue box shown in figure 9.4 and the first
item that is needed is the section you are going to publish your quiz to.
Click On the drop-down arrow and you should see your Blackboard Course
List showing the courses and sections available to you. This is shown in
figure 9.5
Figure 9.4
Figure 9.5 Courses and sections available to you in step 1 of the Publish Wizard.
Note that your list will be different to figure 9.5.
Click On the section you are going to publish your quiz to (alpha, beta etc…)
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If you check that the form on your screen complies with figure 9.4, and having
selected the section to publish to,
Click On the Next Button. You should see on the next Publish Wizard
dialogue box, Respondus going through the process of transfer and if your
quiz has moved across, the ‘Completed Successfully’ message as shown in
figure 9.6.
Figure 9.6
You can now Click On the Finished button in Respondus.
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To check whether your Quiz has moved across successfully, in your Blackboard
course, Click On the Add Content Link, and you should see the title of your quiz
given there.
Figure 9.7
All you need to do now is Click On the Quiz you have imported and check it
works OK in Build, Teach and Student Views.
That completes this task, well done!
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Task 10: Student tools in Blackboard
In Student View, students can access their grades via My Grades as shown here in
figure 10.1
Figure 10.1
Click On the Student View tab and the My Grades button to see the grades
your Demo Student has been awarded. When you create a course in
Blackboard, a Demo student is automatically created, useful when testing
out any assessments you have produced.
My Grades shows all the assessments the student has to do that have been
released along with Statistics and Comments that go with an assignment the
tutor may have marked or from a quiz that was computer-marked.
Click on, My Progress shown in figure 10.2. This feature shows students a
full report of their activity on the course.
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As you can see here, students are in no doubt about when they logged in to the
course, how long they have spent and what they have looked at. Tutors have
access to the same information which we’ll look at next in more depth.
That completes this task, well done!
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Task 11: Instructor Tools in Blackboard
Using the course you have been working on with Build access we’ll have a look next
at the features and tools for Instructors. The Teach Tab has some of the most
useful tools for supporting online learning.
Click On the Teach Tab in the course. The Teach Tab menu shows the
Instructor Tools menu below the Course tools menu.
On the Instructor tools menu, there are two
buttons that are common with the Designer Tools
menu in the Build Tab.
These are Manage Course and Selective Release.
Figure 11.1
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For the purposes of this course, we are not going to cover the tools given under the
Manage Course button. If you are involved as a Course Designer and Builder, you
will need to cover this by attending the course titled, Blackboard Building Your
Course.
Click On the Selective Release button. This is will show the Selective
Release Map. This is useful in that you can specify which students you want
to release course information to.
Figure 11.2
Click on the
sign next to Enter Course to expand the tree.
Then Click On each other
sign you see in the tree to open it up further.
You should now see the Selective Release map expanded as shown in figure 11.3
Figure 11.3
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(Note that you may not see exactly what I have presented in figure 11.3.)
Click On the Selective Release Button, opposite, General Knowledge Quiz 2.
You should see details of the release criteria as shown in figure 11.4
Figure 11.4
Click on, Add Date Criteria and you will see the dates for Available Starting
and Available Until. Here’s where you would select the release dates for the
Quiz if you wanted to display it within a time window.
Close the Window when you have had a look.
For the purposes of our training course and because the University has
locked down staff from entering student data manually, the Add member
button and add group button won’t allow you to add your own students or
groups.
Next, Click On, Add Grade Book Criteria. This is where you can Selectively
Release materials to learners based on certain rules you set.
Figure 11.5
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You can set the Criteria in the Left Hand drop-down list to a certain condition in
the centre drop down list to a Value.
Have a look at the options that you have available.
You might not want to release say Quiz 2 until learners had passed Quiz 1 at say
65%, or you might want to release a quiz to just one or two learners for a re-sit.
You would do this through the Selective release.
Members Tab in Selective Release
This is a useful tool as it shows you all the students you have enrolled onto your
course and what they can see on their desktops. This is useful, if only for the fact
that assignments and release dates can often be mixed up. The members tab you
can look at each student and see what they can see. (See Figure 11.3)
Assessment Manager
You use the Assessment Manager tool to view and grade Student assessment
submissions, and run reports to compare the performance of Students.
After Students submit their assessment answers, you can view and grade their
submissions from the Assessment Manager. You have two options for grading
submissions; grade by Student or, grade by question. To help Students improve
their performance, you can provide comments about each question or about their
submission in general
In Blackboard, Click On the Assessment Manager button.
Figure 11.6
Click On the ALL tab and you should see all the assessments in your course
displayed. As you can see, with the course you have unless your demo
student has taken a quiz, you should have
0 graded, 0 Not Graded and 1 Not Submitted as you only have yourself
(the designer / tutor) and your Demo Student enrolled.
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Now, Click On the Arrow to the left of each assessment (circled in figure
11.6).
You should see each assessment expand to show more details about it.
Figure 11.7
In figure 11.7, you can see the assessments expanded, the names of students, the
grades available for each assessment and the time a student spent on the
assessment.
There is also the Reset Entire Submission button below each Quiz. Resetting a
quiz grade allows you to give Students the opportunity to take the quiz again. For
example, if a Student experienced a technical problem that prevented them from
finishing the quiz before the allotted time expired, you could reset the submission
and re-release the quiz to the Student.
Note also that alongside each student’s name, the drop down action menu. This
allows you to send that student an e-mail and view their profile. You can also
view the students performance report and reset
their submission.
Figure 11.8
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Assignment Dropbox
After Students complete and submit their assignments, you use the Assignment
Drop box tool to view, manage, and evaluate submissions. You can grade
submissions or mark them as complete if the assignments do not require grades.
You can also provide feedback to Students and return submissions if you want
Students to work further on the assignments. You have the option to publish
submissions so all members of the course can view them.
All assignments appear on the Assignments screen. If the Section Designer has set
release criteria which controls when and to whom the assignment is available, the
assignment is marked (Conditional). You can modify the release criteria.
Click On the Assignment Dropbox Button.
Figure 11.9
You should see the assignment you created earlier in the course on Victorian
Architecture as shown in figure 11.9.
There are a number of things here.
Click On the link for the name of the assignment. This will pull up that
student’s submission and allow you to open an attachment if there had been
one.
Here you can add your feedback comments on the assignment submitted, add any
attachments such as guidance notes, PowerPoint slides etc and award a grade for
the assignment, for the score you decided on when designing the assignment.
If time permits, you could test that this function works by naming and creating a
new assignment, adding an attachment and looking at it through the drop box.
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Grade book
The Grade Book shown in figure 11.10, is where you can view, enter, change and
manage grades.
The Grade Book operates like a spreadsheet in rows and columns.
Member data is in rows and a column is dedicated to a specific set of data, be it
quiz scores (numeric or letter grades) user roles (student, designer, teaching
assistant), names or login names.
Figure 11.10
As you can see in figure 11.10, the Grade Book has a number of tabs and
buttons.
The best place to discover what these all do is to Click On the Help link at
the top right-hand corner of the screen. This is just to show all the various
things you can do with the data available.
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Looking at the five tabs. (Click On these as we go through what they do)
Figure 11.11
Grades:
This displays the default columns (Last Name, First Name and user ID)
and any grade related columns. This tab is used to view, enter, or override grade
related information.
Members:
all default columns (except quiz ad assignment columns), and
any non grade-related columns. This view is meant to hold and descriptive
information that you want to store about students and auditors.
View All:
all columns, grade-related or not.
Custom View:
All columns initially. You delete and re-order columns to
create your own view of member information.
SCORM Grades: columns that are automatically added for gradable SCORM
modules. This tab may not be available, depending on whether you have a SCORM
module imported.
Setting up the Grade book.
You will most likely want to customise the Grade Book to suit your needs. You can;

Create columns to calculate or average grades, generate a letter grade
based on a numeric score, keep notes and record any other data.

Edit Columns, including creating or changing formulas for calculating
columns, creating or editing selection options for selection list columns and
editing numeric ranges for letter grade columns.

Modify Column settings to control column attributes such as alignment,
number of decimals and whether the column is released to students.

Modify how some elements of the grade book are displayed and the order
and visibility of columns.
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Default Columns
The following columns appear in the Grade Book by default and cannot be deleted.
Last Name, First Name, user name and Role.
Midterm and Final: These columns are used to generate student’s midterm and
final grades. Only values from these columns can be exported to the Student
Information System (CAMPUS SOLUTIONS). By default, these columns have a
column type of – calculated, but can be edited.
Assessments: When a quiz or survey is created, a corresponding column is created
in Grade Book. When a quiz is graded, the grade is automatically added to the
column. When a survey is taken, its corresponding column indicates whether the
survey was taken.
Discussion: When a gradable discussion topic is created, a corresponding column is
automatically created. When the discussion is graded, the grade is automatically
added to the column.
Assignments: When a gradable assignment is created, a corresponding column is
automatically created. When the assignment is graded, the grade is automatically
added to the column.
SCORM: When a SCORM module is imported, a corresponding column is
automatically created. SCORM columns are only available from the SCORM sub-tab.
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Column Types
You can also create new columns. The following column types are available in the
Grade Book.
Column Type
Alphanumeric
Calculated
Letter Grade
Numeric
Description
allows you to enter a
short string of text or
numbers
displays the numeric
result of a formula that
you create for that
column. The formula can
reference to any other
columns that contain
numeric information:
numeric columns, other
calculated columns, and
quiz or assignment
columns
generates a letter grade
based on the values of a
numeric or calculated
column. You can edit the
numeric ranges that
determine which letter
grade is assigned
allows you to enter
numeric grades only
Selection List
allows you to select from
a drop-down (selection)
list of one or more values
to describe or grade
students.
Text
allows you to enter an
extended amount of
words, phrases, or
paragraphs.
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Example
an “e-mail address”
column to hold external
e-mail addresses
A column that uses a
formula that averages
students grades for the
assignments, quizzes
and midterm for the
first half of the
semester to generate
students interim grades
a column that converts
the numeric grades for
the midterm and final
to letter grades
a column for recording
grades for participation
in assignments or
assessments outside of
Bb.
a column titled, “Class,
“ that contains the
words,
‘Undergraduate’,
‘Second Year’,
‘Postgraduate’ etc.
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Creating Columns in the Grade Book
When you create a column, specifying that the column is grade-related will
automatically add that column to the Grades tab.
The tab will also appear on the View and Custom View Tabs.
To create an Alphanumeric, Selection list and Text Column
Let’s put one of these in your Grade Book.
Click On, Grade Book.
Click On, Create Column and from the Actionlinks menu,
Click On either, Alphanumeric, Selection List or Text as
shown in figure 11.12.
Enter a column label (The name of your choice) and from
the drop-down list select the Alignment.
Select whether the column is grade-related and, if so,
whether you want the column released to students.
Figure 11.12
Click On Save. Your new column should no have been
added to the Grade Book.
Calculated and Numeric Columns
The column settings for Calculated and Numeric columns are the same.
To create a Calculated or Numeric Column
From the Grade Book, Click On, Create Column and from the Actionlinks
menu, Click On Calculated or Numeric Column.
Figure 11.13
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Figure 11.13 shows the column settings.
Add a column label and decide the alignment.
Select the number of decimal places and enter the maximum value (follow the
note in the box.)
Finally, select the release statistics (to students) , None, Average Only or All
Letter Grade Columns
To create a letter grade column
In Grade Book, Click On, Create Column and from the Actionlinks menu,
Click On, Letter Grade Column.
Enter the Column settings and from the drop-down list, select the numeric
or calculated column on which you want to base the letter grade column.
Click On, Save and your new column should be added to your Grade book.
Editing Columns
You must edit selection list columns and calculated columns before they can be
used. You can edit letter grade columns if you want to change the numeric range
associated with each letter grade.
Note: Numeric, Alphanumeric and text columns can be added to the Grade Book
and used without further set up.
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Editing Selection List Items
For selection list columns, you must specify the words or phrases to appear in the
selection list. (Make sure you have a selection list column before starting this task)
To edit selection list items,
Locate (or create a new one) the Selection List Column you want to edit
and from the column’s Actionlinks menu, Click On, Edit Column Select List.
Figure 11.14
On Clicking On the Edit Column Select List option, the Edit Selection List
screen appears as shown in figure 11.15.
Figure 11.15
There is a single item to begin with under Item. Enter the first term you want to
appear in the drop-down box (
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and then Click On , Add Item.
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Enter the following items individually, clicking Add Item after each.
FAIL, BARE FAIL, BARE PASS, PASS, GOOD PASS,
VERY GOOD PASS
After you have entered these Click On, the SAVE button.
Figure 11.16
This type of column would be useful at the far end of your Grade book to record
what the result was for a student who had taken your course.
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Figure 11.17
Looking at the Selection List Column in figure 11.17, if you Click On the
grade for the student (shown circled), you will pull up the Edit Value For
dialogue box for this student.
Clicking On the drip-down arrow next in the Change To box, you will see
the list of categories you have just produced.
Select one of the categories off the list and Click On Save.
Now look at your Grade Book in the Selection List column. You should see your
selection appear under the column as shown in figure 11.18.
Figure 11.18
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Editing Calculated Column Formulas
Once you have created a calculated column, you must edit its formula.
To edit a calculated column formula:
Create a new calculated column in the Grade Book. Call it, Statistics 1
Click On the Action link and you will see Edit Column Formula, as shown in
figure 11.19.
Click On, Edit Column Formula.
Figure 11.19
This takes you to the Edit Formula For screen shown in figure 11.20.
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Formula box
Grade book
columns
Functions list
Figure 11.20
In the Edit Formula for screen, you can see at the top the Formula Box, with the
names of your Grade Book Columns underneath and the Functions list alongside.
There is a formula example given alongside on the right to show how to construct
formula for Calculated column formulas.
Some guidelines
To enter numbers and arithmetic operators in the formula box, use the
mouse to select numbers and symbols and operators on the keyboard.
To clear the last value entered in the formula box, Click Undo on the Edit
Formula Screen.
To Clear All values from the formula box, Click On, Clear All.
MAX (maximum), MIN (Minimum), AVG (average) and SUM refer to a function
performed on a list. For example, if you wanted to take the highest score
from three quizzes to be used in the calculation of a final grade, you would
pick a function – in this case MAX – enter values, and then end the function.
Example: AVG{[Midterm] + [End of module quiz]} Note that
the editor places the columns you select inside square brackets,
and to complete the formula, select, End Function.
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Editing Letter Grade Columns
For letter grade columns, you can change the range of numeric grades that each
letter grade represents.
To edit a letter grade scheme,
Create a new Letter Grade column in the grade book. Call it, Final Grade
Figure 11.21
From the Actionlinks menu, Click On, Edit Column letter Grade Scheme and you
should see the screen appear as shown in figure 11.22.
Figure 11.22
As you can see here in figure 11.22, you can adjust the range of marks or the grade
band criteria letter for whatever you base the column on (see drop-down list
circled).
Click On Save. If you Click on, Save and Set as Default, all future letter columns
will automatically adopt the same letter structure.
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Using Grading Forms
The Grading Forms tool provides a more granular way of grading a student’s work
by identifying specific criteria and levels of performance against the criteria. It is
often best to devise your Grading form at the same time as you write your
assignment.
Some of the benefits of using a grading form include: performance expectations
are clear: Students can view the criteria when completing the work.

grading is consistent: Section Instructors and Teaching Assistants use the
criteria when grading the work.

feedback is structured: along with their final mark, Students can view the
completed grading form to see how they scored for each criterion.

In Blackboard, when creating a new assignment, there is an option to use a
grading forms or not as shown in figure 11.23.
Figure 11.23
Example:
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You could create a grading form to evaluate a writing assignment. The
evaluation criteria could be Spelling & grammar, Critical thinking, and
Original ideas, and the performance indicators could be Needs
improvement, Meets expectations, and Exceptional. You would then
need to define and assign a numeric value to your performance
indicators.
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Objective/Criteria
Performance Indicators
Needs improvement
Meets expectations
Exceptional
Spelling and
grammar
Many mistakes and lack of
proofreading (10 points)
Few obvious mistakes
(20 points)
No obvious mistakes (30 points)
Critical thinking
Arguments not supported
(10 points)
Some arguments
supported (20 points)
Solid arguments with excellent
support for all of them (30
points)
Original ideas
Nothing original (15 points)
Some originality (25
points)
Several original ideas (40 points)
You can create multiple grading forms for a course. You can then choose to use one
of the grading forms from the Discussions and Assignments tools to grade
discussion topics and assignments. You can also create columns in the Grade Book
that are associated with grading forms.
If the Grading Forms tool has been enabled, you can access it by clicking Grading
Forms on the course menu, under Designer Tools or Instructor Tools. Grading
forms can also be accessed from assignments and discussions topics that use
grading forms.
Figure 11.24
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Creating or Editing Grading Forms
When editing grading forms that are used by a learning object, you cannot add or
delete criteria or performance indicators. You can, however, edit the numeric
values assigned to the performance indicators. If grades have been assigned, they
are automatically re-graded in Grade Book. There is one exception: overridden
grades are not automatically re-graded.
1. From the Grading Forms screen, do one of the following:
o
To create a grading form, click Create Grading Form.
o
To edit a grading form, click its ActionLinks icon and click Edit
Grading Form.
c. If you need to delete a performance indicator, click its Remove this
performance indicator icon. You must have at least two performance
indicators.
2. For each criterion, define your
Note:
If the grading form is used by a learning object, such as an
assignment, you cannot add or delete criteria or performance
indicators.
3. Enter a title and description.
4. Three criteria appear by default. To add to or edit these, do the following:
a. Under Objective/Criteria, click its Edit icon.
b. Edit the label. Click outside the text box to save your edit.
c. If you need to add a criterion, click Add Criterion.
d. If you need to delete a criterion, click its Remove this criterion icon.
5. Three performance indicators appear by default. To add to or edit these, do
the following:
Under Performance Indicators, click its Edit icon.
. Edit the label, and click outside the text box to save your entry.
a. If you need to add a performance indicator, click Add Performance
Indicator.
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6. performance indicators by entering an explanation in the text box. For
example: To receive a ranking of excellent for the spelling and grammar
criterion, you must have fewer than five errors.
7. In the points text box for each criterion's performance ranking, enter a
numeric value. The maximum score is calculated automatically.
8. Click Save.
You can now select this grading form when creating assignments and discussion
topics.
Most of the options on the Grading form are editable.
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Deleting Grading Forms
When you delete a grading form that has an associated column in the Grade Book,
grades are kept but the grading form cannot be viewed. Its Grade Book column
type is changed from Grading Form to Numeric.
1. From the Grading Forms screen, do one of the following:
o
To delete one grading form, click its ActionLinks icon.
o
To delete multiple grading forms, next to each one that you want to
delete, select the check box.
o
To delete all grading forms on the current page, in the table heading
row, next to Title, select the check box.
2. Click Delete.
3. Click OK.
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Group Manager
The Group manager Tool allows you to create and edit groups to allow students to
work on projects collaboratively.
With the Group Manager Tool you can,




Create groups where students are individually chosen or randomly
assigned.
Create groups with sign-up sheets that allow students to sign up for
groups or projects.
Send mail messages to all members of one or more groups.
Create discussion topics and chat rooms for groups to facilitate group
communication.
Once groups have been created, with the Assignments tool, you can,
Create assignments that are assigned to groups, allowing students to work
collaboratively or cooperatively.
Create assignments that are assigned to individual students, but provide different
instructions to groups of students.
Types of Groups
Group Manager allows you to create groups and assign members to them in several
ways. Choose the type of group and a method based on your needs.
If you want to…







Create a single group
Individually choose group
members
Create unique group names
Create multiple groups
Individually choose group
members or assign members
randomly
Create single or multiple groups
Allow students to assign
themselves
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select this group type
CUSTOM
MULTIPLE
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Creating Custom Groups
Create Custom Groups to specify your own group names and control the members
who are assigned to the groups. When you create a custom group, you can add
members when you create it, or you can add members later.
To create a single custom group
From the Teach Tab, Under Instructor Tools, Click On, Group Manager.
Next, Click On, the Create Groups button.
Figure 11.25
You should see the three options appear for adding members as shown in
figure 11.25
Click On, Create Custom Group and then, Continue.
You should see the screen in figure 11.26 appear.
Figure 11.26
In the Group Name Enter a group name (think of your own student groups)
Enter a brief description of the group also.
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Click On the Add Members button and the screen in figure 11.27 appears.
Figure 11.27
Here you can manually click all the students in your Grade book, you can add all of
them, or you can go and find members and enrol them into the group.
Creating Multiple Groups follows the same format, with certain additional
different features.
You can select empty groups and assign members later, or you can create groups
with randomly assigned students.
Figure 11.28
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This will automatically set up the groups for you with different names and assign
students randomly (if required) to each group..
Sign Up Sheets
Sign Up sheets allow students to add themselves to groups. However, you control
the maximum size of the group and whether students can see who has signed up.
To Create a Sign-up sheet
From the Group Manager, Click On, Create Groups and select Create
Groups with Sign-Up sheets.
Figure 11.29
In the form you can decide on the number of groups, the base name of the group
(after which numbers will be generated, i.e., Lab1, Lab2, Lab 3 etc), a description
of the group (optional) and the maximum numbers of students per group.
You can choose whether to allow students to view group members names before
signing up (or not).
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Sending e-Mail to Groups
Once you have set up your groups, you can quickly send an e-mail message to one
or more groups. You can also send a message to all members from the Group
manager Tool.
To send a message to Groups;
From the Group Manager screen, select the groups you want to send a message to
and Click On, Send mail. The Create message pop-up screen appears and the
group members appear in the TO field.
Enter the subject and message and Click On Add Attachments to add any files you
want to include with the message.
Click On, Send and your message will be sent to all the group members.
Creating Group Activities
With the Group Manager tool you can create the following activities;
 Group Discussion topics
 Group Chat and Whiteboard Rooms
To create a group activity
From the Group Manager screen, select your groups.
From the Create Group Activity drop-down list, select either Discussion Topic or
Chat/Whiteboard room and Click On the GO icon. (Green arrow to the right)
The Create Discussion Topic or Create Chat and Whiteboard room screen will then
appear.
Create your discussion topic or Chat/whiteboard room and Click On SAVE. The
Group Manager screen appears along with a message confirming that the group
activity has been created.
Note, for chat and whiteboard rooms, if you have selected multiple groups , you
can select whether you want to create a single room for all of the groups or
separate rooms for each group.
That completes (this quite lengthy) task. Well done!
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Task 12: Using Turnitin with Blackboard
Turnitin http://turnitin.com/ is an organisation based in the USA which provides a
range of services to support academic institutions including plagiarism detection in
electronically submitted documents. The University of Manchester is a subscriber
to this service.
Some institutions provide students with their own Turnitin account, so they can
submit their own assignments for checking prior to submitting them to a tutor.
Turnitin compares the students text to its own database of books, journals,
websites, assignments and documents and returns to the user a colour-coded status
report, showing any areas where a match may have been found along with
corresponding web addresses where any matched text may have originated from.
One useful feature for staff using Turnitin is that they can submit a batch of
assignments as a .zip file for Turnitin (there are various submission methods) to
check individual scripts. An ‘Originality Report’ is generated based on Turnitin’s
colour-coded scale and highlights the students work with a colour, and alongside it,
a web address showing the suspected site the students has copied text from (if it
has located one).
Turnitin’s Originality Report scale is,
Colour
Matching text
Blue
less than 20 matching words
Green
0 – 24% matching text
Orange
25 – 49% matching text
Yellow
50 – 74% matching text
Red
75 – 100% matching text
Table 12.1
Blackboard is integrated with Turnitin and this task shows how you can write an
assignment in Build view which integrates with Blackboard. Students then can
submit their individual assignment and get Turnitin to check it against the scale
above in table 12.1.
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In Build View, enter the course you have Design access to.
Click On the My Assessments folder.
Next, Click On the Add Content Link button at the top of the screen.
Figure 12.1
You can see in the drop-down list there is a link for TurnitinUK Assignment.
Click On the link and you should see a box appear in the centre of the menu
like figure 12.2.
Click On the Create TurnitinUK
Assignment button.
(Note in figure 12.2 two TurnitinUK
assignments have already been
produced.)
Figure 12.2
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In the box that appears on screen type in the name of your assignment.
Call it something you can easily recognise. Next, Click On the Create TurnitinUK
Assignment.
Figure 12.3
I have called my assignment, Radio Astronomy Assignment 3
The next screen to appear is the Turnitin screen shown in figure 12.4.
Figure 12.4
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Starting at the top of this form in figure 12.4 you can see there is a drop down
menu alongside, Create a new.
Click On here and see what types of assignment you can submit.
Underneath you enter the assignment title – the same one you typed into
Blackboard earlier.
(in my case - Radio Astronomy Assignment 3)
Next, are your start and due dates. These default to today’s date and a weeks
hence which you can change if you wish.
The Special instructions box is optional but you might want to add information here
to students.
In the Generate Originality Reports for Submission, leave this set to yes as we
want to see the report from Turnitin, our potential students would be working on.
The final box, show advanced assignment options can be left alone for the purposes
of this course.
Click On the Submit button.
Turnitin will take you back to your Blackboard course as shown in figure 12.5, and a
new (Turnitin shaped) icon will have appeared for your assignment.
Figure 12.5
Click On the assignment icon or link in Build view.
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You will see a screen with something similar to figure 12.6.
Figure 12.6
Click On the OK button.
Switch to your Student View Tab and look in your My Assessments folder.
Wait while the Turnitin screen loads as shown in figure 12.7.
Figure 12.7
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Enter your first and last name in the boxes shown and also the name of your
assignment.
Give your assignment a title.
Now, we need an assignment to upload. To test out what an originality report
looks like, this is what you need to do.

In a blank Word document, saved to the Desktop, I want you to go
onto Google and search for Radio Astronomy.

When you get the return from Google, copy and paste some text from
THREE websites (one after another) into your Word document.

Save your Word Document to the desktop as a .doc file.
In the ‘Browse for the file to upload box, Browse to find your file then Click On,
Submit.
You should see your
assignment appear on screen
as shown in figure 12.8.
Click On the Yes, Submit
button.
Note in my example, I have
copied and pasted text from
three websites – so my
originality report will be
different to yours.
Figure 12.8
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Click On the Assignment Inbox button shown in Turnitin. You should see the
assignment inbox screen appear as shown in figure 12.9.
Figure 12.9
Click On the report for the assignment shown in figure 12.9.
You should obtain the originality report as shown below in figure 12.10.
Matches from
Turnitin
Figure 12.10
That completes the activity, and the course!
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Intentionally blank
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Appendices
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Task 13: (optional) Respondus Equation Editor
Step 1
In Respondus, CLICK ON the create button and create a new file.
In the Name of File box, enter, VOLUMES OF SOLIDS
In the Description box, enter, This question is to assess the learners
identification and understanding of mathematical formulae.
Step 2
At the top of the form in Respondus, in the 1: Title of Question box, enter,
QUESTION 1
For the Question STEM, enter, Which is the correct formula for the VOLUME of a
SPHERE?
Step 3
In section 3 of the form you can begin to add your Key and Distractors.
In the Answer for the A response, CLICK your Mouse once, so the cursor flashes in
the box.
Next CLICK ON the Equation Editor button on the Respondus Toolbar.
The Equation Editor button
Fig 13.1
Step 4
Go to the WWW and enter the following URL: www.wikipedia.org
Go to the link for ENGLISH and in the search box, enter the word, VOLUMES.
This should bring up a WikiPedia page showing formulae on volumes of geometrical
solids.
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Step 5
On the WikiPedia page you should see the formulae for the following figures;
ELLIPSOID
ANY FIGURE
PYRAMID
SPHERE
CONE
In your empty Respondus question form, you are going to add the five formulae you
can see, with V= in front of each one, into the Respondus form in boxes A, B, C, D
and E.
Step 6
CLICK ON the ENABLE FEEDBACK check box located on the left.
Next, start to enter the correct formula into these boxes on the form using the
Equation Editor.
A:
B:
C:
*D:
E:
ELLIPSOID
ANY FIGURE
PYRAMID
SPHERE
CONE
Distractor
Distractor
Distractor
Key
Distractor
Step 7
Figure 13.2
Figure 13.2 shows that the Equation editor has a number of buttons that are
grouped into different mathematical categories. Explore first what mathematical
symbols each button offers. Once you have had a look, begin each equation with,
V=
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Step 8
After you have completed a formula, Click On, File and Exit. This will take you to
a box underneath that looks like Figure 13.3.
Figure 13.3
You can Click on, the OK button here.
This will also put a symbol for the equation you have created in the response box
on the Respondus form.
The term <EQ_1> in Green
lettering appears on your
form.
Figure 13.4
Add all the other equations next.
Step 9
Next add the feedback to go with each of the FIVE options.
Step 10
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Next, in box 4 on the form, select the letter for the correct answer. (This should
be D) In box 5 give the question a point value if you wish. Finally CLICK ON the
ADD TO END OF LIST button.
This will put your question at the bottom of the form as shown here in figure 13.5.
Figure 13.5
Now preview your question. It should appear like figure 13.6.
Step 11
Having created the question, CLICK ON, File, and SAVE, to save the question to
the list.
Step 12
Using the procedure you used in Step 11, follow the steps carefully and publish the
Respondus test into your Blackboard course as a new quiz.
If you managed the task, well done! If you have time available, have a look at
doing the same question in Blackboard. See if you can use Blackboard’s Equation
Editor in the same way.
If you do get this far, can you do the same things in Blackboard as you could in
Respondus?
Fig 13.6
That completes the task, well done!
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Multiple Choice Question Planning Sheet
Question Number ………..
Title…………………………………………………………..
Learning Outcome to be addressed
Correct Answer
Mark with a tick
Question Stem

Answer 1.
Answer 1 Feedback
Answer 2.
Answer 2 Feedback
Answer 3.
Answer 3 Feedback
Answer 4.
Answer 4 Feedback
Answer 5.
Answer 5 Feedback
Answer 6.
Answer 6 Feedback
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Multiple Choice Question Planning Sheet
Question Number ………..
Title…………………………………………………………..
Learning Outcome to be addressed
Correct Answer
Mark with a tick
Question Stem

Answer 1.
Answer 1 Feedback
Answer 2.
Answer 2 Feedback
Answer 3.
Answer 3 Feedback
Answer 4.
Answer 4 Feedback
Answer 5.
Answer 5 Feedback
Answer 6.
Answer 6 Feedback
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Post Training Action Plan
The following questions are intended to help you reflect and help you move
forward in developing e-learning.
1.
After attending the session on Vista assessment today, what do you intend to
do next?
2.
How will you be able to use the techniques you have developed within your
department to support administration or curriculum development?
3.
What would be your short, medium and long term goals for integrating
Blackboard into your work,

this month?

next month?

next semester?
Additional Training Needs
4.
What additional training needs do you have regarding Blackboard and
embedding e-learning in your area of work?
5.
Have you seen what other training courses Distributed Learning provide?
If you would like to see what’s available, go to the DL website at,
http://distlearn.man.ac.uk/courses/detail
6.
Alternatively, if you would like to speak to a member of the Distributed
Learning team regarding Blackboard, please enquire by e-mail to,
dl.courses@manchester.ac.uk
Thank you for attending the workshop, we hope you enjoyed it and found it useful.
Good luck in using Blackboard for Assessment!
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Designing Multiple Choice Items
Based on Norman Gealy’s
“Setting Multiple-Choice Tests – assessment handbook”
by the City and Guilds examining board.
The term used for a single multiple choice question with answers is known as the
ITEM.
An item is made up of a STEM which poses a question, followed by a number of
options each of which gives a possible answer. Generally there is one correct
answer, known as a KEY. There could however be a number of correct options,
where students are asked to choose two or possibly three correct options from a
longer list.
The other options are known as DISTRACTORS, which are definitely wrong answers
but appear plausible to candidates with insufficient knowledge.
Item example
Q1 What is the most common symptom of cataracts?
a
b
*c
d
Ocular pain
Double vision
Clouded vision
Loss of light perception
STEM
DISTRACTOR
DISTRACTOR
KEY
DISTRACTOR
Items should be read as easily as their subject matter allows. Diagrams should be
used wherever they can help to make the meaning clear. Wording should be
simple, direct and concise. Punctuation should be consistent from item to item.
The Stem of an item should pose the question clearly and in full. It should be
written so that a knowledgeable candidate who is shown the item with the options
covered will be able to supply the answer, or at least be able to describe the range
of possible answers.
The Key must be undisputedly correct.
The Distractors must clearly be wrong so that they can be discounted by
knowledgeable candidates. However they must be plausible so that they cannot be
discounted by candidates who are guessing.
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Writing an Item
1.
Choose the syllabus objective
First you need to select the course syllabus objective you want to write the
Item for.
2.
Draft the Stem
The question in the Stem should require candidates to show mastery of the
objective. In many cases, such as the example used here, the type of
question required will be obvious. In other cases it is often helpful to
consider whether to test recall, understanding or application. (See
Appendix1)
The question should be written out in full. For example,
What is the function of a postage stamp?
3.
Draft the Key
The answer used as the Key should be carefully written to ensure that it is
always correct.
What is the function of a postage stamp?
Evidence of the postage paid.
4.
Draft the Distractors
This can be the most difficult part of the whole process!
The nature of the question in the Stem predetermines the types of wrong
answer which can be used as distractors. If the question asks for a value the
distractors will be other values; if the question asks for a reason the
distractors will be false reasons; if the question asks for a method the
distractors will be inappropriate methods etc.
Sometimes when it is difficult to think of distractors the question can be
amended to accommodate distractors which otherwise would not fit. In the
last resort the question should be discarded and a new start made with
another idea.
The distractors should be written in similar language and detail to the Key
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What is the function of a postage stamp?
Evidence of the postage paid.
An indication of the weight of a letter.
To show how far the letter is to travel.
To show where the letter was posted.
5.
Check the Item
The draft item should be checked for faults such as the following.
Too little or too much information in the Stem.
Clues which might alert ‘testwise’ candidates to the Key.
Options which “overlap” (include) other options.
The draft Item in the example includes faults of the first two types. There
is too little information in the Stems it does not refer to letters. There is a
clue as the term “postage” is used in both Stem and key but not in any of
the Distractors. Both of these faults require amendments to the Item.
What is the function of a postage stamp on a letter?
Evidence of the delivery charge paid.
An indication of the weight of the letter.
To show how far the letter is to travel.
To show where the letter was posted.
6.
Revise the Item
The wording of the stem and options should be checked to ensure that it is
clear and simple. The options should, as far as possible, be given the same
wording and grammatical structure.
What is the function of the postage stamp on a letter?
To
To
To
To
show the delivery charge paid
show the weight of the letter.
show how far the letter is to travel.
show where the letter was posted.
In some cases, including the example, the item can be expressed equally
clearly yet more concisely by changing the Stem to the incomplete
statement form to incorporate wording which is repeated in all four options.
Only in such cases is the incomplete statement form preferable..
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The function of the postage stamp on a letter is to show
The delivery charge paid
The weight of the letter
How far the letter is to travel
Where the letter was posted.
7.
Finalising
In order to randomise the position of the key, options may be put in order by
length or alphabetically. The key can be shown by an asterisk.
The function of the postage stamp on a letter is to show
*a
b
c
d
the delivery charge paid
the weight of the letter
where the letter was posted
how far the letter is to travel.
Options which are quantitative should be put in order of increasing value.
Options which are related should be put in whatever order gives the most
logical progression.
Asking for THE answer or for AN answer
Most questions which will be used in items normally have only one correct
answer. The clearest way of expressing the questions is usually to begin
with one of the question words such as “WHAT”, “WHY”, “WHICH”,
“HOW”.
What is the solvent in brine?
a
*b
c
d
Salt.
Water.
Alcohol.
Sodium carbonate.
Asking for the WRONG answer
Asking for negative answers should be avoided unless it is important to test
whether candidates know NOT to do something. In such exceptional cases
the negative term in the question is printed in CAPIAL LETTERS to ensure
that it is noticed.
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Which ONE of the following types of fire extinguisher must NOT be used
on fires in electrical apparatus?
*a
b
c
d
Water
Dry Powder
Fire Blanket
Carbon dioxide
Using numerical options
Many item writers, when using numerical or quantitative options which are
put in order of increasing value, have an almost exclusive preference for
options (b) and (c) as keys. Options (a) and (d) must also be used as keys or
candidates will come to ignore them.
In the sidewall of a caravan tyre, what is the maximum length permitted
for a cut which is deep enough to reach the tyre’s bodycords?
a
b
c
*d
10
15
20
25
mm
mm
mm
mm
Using diagrams
Diagrams should be used in preference to text wherever they can present the
required information more simply. Diagrams should be clear and unambiguous.
They can also be used as options and be positioned below the item’s stem in the
same way as written options.
Extract taken from
Norman Gealy (1984) Setting Multiple Choice tests – assessment handbook,
City and Guilds of London Institute, Test and Measurement Research Unit, 76
Portland Place, London W1N 4AA
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Resources
Here are some useful Websites that look at how to write good multiple-choice
questions.
BMJ
http://careerfocus.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/330/7483/25-a
Brigham Young University
http://testing.byu.edu/info/handbooks/14%20Rules%20for%20Writing%20Multipl
e-Choice%20Questions.pdf
CETIS – IMS-QTI standards
http://assessment.cetis.ac.uk/FAQs/FAQs/Basics/Basics%20home
Computer Assisted Assessment Centre – University of Loughborough
http://caacentre.lboro.ac.uk/resources/objective_tests/index.shtml
Eric’s Digest
http://www.ericdigests.org/1997-1/test.html
Manchester Metropolitan University
http://www.ltu.mmu.ac.uk/ltia/issue4/higginstatham.shtml
Oregon University
http://tep.uoregon.edu/resources/assessment/multiplechoicequestions/practica
lsuggestions.html
University of Leicester
http://www.le.ac.uk/castle/resources/
University of York
http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~am1/HowtoMC.PDF
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Reference List
BECTA (2001) Creating online learning materials – a good practice guide for
colleges, BECTA, www.becta.org.uk
BECTA (2002) Paving the way to excellence in e-Learning: standards for highquality content from the NLN, BECTA, Coventry
DFES (2007), Raising Standards – a contextual guide to support success in
literacy, Numeracy and ESOL provision, dfes.gov.uk/raisingstandards/ (accessed
29 May 2007)
Hussein, Shubhanna (2005) Developing e-learning materials – applying usercentred design, NIACE, De Montfort Street, Leicester
JISC (2006), e-Assessment – an overview of JISC activities, briefing paper, JISC,
June 2006
Knight, Sarah, (2004) Effective Practice with e-Learning, JISC, University of
Bristol
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Fact Sheet
Exporting and Importing content into Blackboard
You can use the export feature to export the following content for use in other
Blackboard sections and courses



Assessments
Questions in the Question Database
Learning Modules
Table one illustrates what can be exported
Content
Assessment
Individual questions
Learning Module
Elements exported
the assessment and the questions that it
contains,
the categories that the questions belong
to,
any image files added to the questions,
the assessment properties.
Submission and security settings are NOT
exported
Questions,
the categories that the questions belong
to,
question settings,
any linked files, e.g. image files
Headings,
assessment in the Table of Contents or
Action Menu,
Content files in the Table of Contents or
Action menu,
Learning Module properties
Action Menu settings.
Table 1
You can export multiple content items of the same type to one content package.
For example, you can create a content package with multiple assessments.
You need to Export something before you can Import, so let’s do that first.
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Exporting Assessments and Learning Modules
To export assessment or Learning Modules;
Under Course Tools, Click Assessments or Learning Modules. The Assessments
screen or Learning Modules screen appears.
Select the check box next to the assessments or learning modules that you want to
export and Click, Export. The Content Browser screen appears.
Select a location, enter a name for the package and Click OK.
The export log screen appears and any errors or warnings are displayed.
Click Return. The Course Content Home page then appears.
Exporting individual Questions
To export questions;
In Build view, under Course Tools, Click On, Assessments. The Assessments
screen appears.
Click On, Go to Question Database. The Question Database appears.
From either the Question View or the category View, select the questions you want
to export and Click On, Export Questions. The Content Browser screen appears.
Locate and select the location you want to export the questions to and, in the
Save As text box, enter a name for the content package.
Click OK. The Export Log screen appears and any errors and warnings are
displayed.
Click Return. The Course Content Home page appears.
Course Content Import
You can use the import content feature to share and re-use content that you have
created in other versions of WebCT or with other software packages.
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Fact Sheet
Backing Up your Blackboard Course
You can create backups of your course that administrators can restore at a later
time. This feature is designed as a quick and convenient way to back up your
course before making changes that way want to undo with the help of an
administrator.
For example, if you wanted to make design changes to your course or delete
content, you could back up your course before making the changes so you could
restore it as it was before you made the changes.
The following data is included in a course backup:





Data including users, enrolments, and other meta-data
All content and any data that it produces, for example assessments
and their submissions
Selective release criteria applied to content
File and folder structures
Course settings
After you have backed up your course you can save the backup as a file. This
allows you to download the backup and save them to a storage medium of your
choice. Unlike regular backups, backup files can contain tracking data. If you
choose to include tracking data, the last processed tracking information collected
before the backup was created is used.
Note: Designers and instructors cannot restore backups.
If you need to restore a course, you need to contact your administrator.
You can Backup from either the Build or Teach Tab.
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Creating a Backup
You can make multiple course backups. Each course backup is listed with the date
and time at which the backup was completed. After you have created the backup
you can save it as a file.
To back up your course and save it as a file;
From the Build or Teach tab, under Designer or Instructor, Click On, Manage
Course. The manage Course screen appears.
Click On, Backup. The Course Backups screen appears.
Click, Back up Course. Your section or course is added to the backup queue.
Click OK. The Course Backups screen appears and the backup is listed along with
any other completed backups.
Locate the backup from its Actionlinks menu, select Save As File. The Content
Browser appears.
Navigate to the location where you want to save the file. Leave the Tracking Data
checkbox selected.
Click Ok.
The backup file is created
Go to the File Manager and download the file to your local computer.
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Notes
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Notes
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Back Cover
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