Step 4: Releasing the test to the Student Viewable Area

Once you are happy that your test is arranged on the test canvas, you are ready to add it to the course.

Helpful Tip: To ensure that students can find both your test and other tests across all courses, we advise that you put your test in an easily located area. This area should be consistent for all teaching delivered in the unit and/or all courses on the programme. This may be in a section called “Assessments” in the left-hand menu of all courses in the programme.

Aligning your test’s location with the location of tests across the programme will ensure that students aren’t focussing on navigating Blackboard when they should be learning!

When adding your test, first enter the location in the Blackboard course where you would like your students to access it.

Activity: Add the test to the student view

  1. Choose “Assessments” and then “Test”.
  2. Choose the test you want to add and click “Submit”.
  3. You will now be taken to the test settings pages.

Test Settings

Test settings are unique to the assessment that you wish to run. We have created some recommendations based on past methods of running tests.

Important

Make sure when setting up that you know the difference between “Force Completion” and “Set Timer” WITH “auto-submit ON”. “Force completion” is a setting designed to permit users to enter the assessment attempt only once – this cannot be trusted, as students often lose connectivity for minor things, leading to a lot of student support queries in your email inbox!

If you would like a test to automatically submit, choose “Set Timer” and ensure that “auto-submit” is set to “On”. This setting will ensure that once the student starts a test, the timer will continue counting down. If the student loses connectivity for a moment, they are only disadvantaged by the amount of time it takes for them to log back in.

Information on Test Settings

Please be aware that you should choose test settings based on how you intend to run your test. The information presented below summarises each setting.

  • Make the link available:
    This indicates whether or not your students can see the link to your test.
    Choosing “YES” may mean that your test is available to students immediately – IF you don’t add further restrictions on dates.
    Choosing “NO” will mean that your test is completely unavailable and will remain so until you change the setting. “NO” overrides all later settings.

  • Multiple Attempts:
    When off, students have one attempt only. You can specify how many attempts they are allowed.

  • Score attempt using:
    Are you taking the highest attempt’s score? Do you want to take the first attempt’s score? The average? This has a large effect on the final mark, so it needs to be correct.

  • Force completion:
    THIS SHOULD ALWAYS BE OFF (unticked), THIS IS A BROKEN BUTTON WHICH WILL CAUSE STUDENTS TO SUFFER. If you want a quiz to submit after a specific time automatically, use the “Set Timer” > “Auto submit” instead.

  • Set Timer:
    Tick this and from the moment that the student clicks “Begin”, the timer counts down, whether or not the student closes the window. Combine with “Auto submit on” to have the quiz submit automatically when the timer reaches its end.
  • Display After/Until:
    Will open/close your test on particular dates and times (if you ensure that the box is ticked). The test itself will appear/disappear from the students’ view automatically.

  • Password:
    Ignore unless you are running a test in a classroom setting.

  • Restrict location:
    Ignore unless you are running a test in a classroom setting.

  • Test availability exceptions:
    This is a way to provide one or more students with specific settings (such as tailored dates or timers) to assist those students with specific needs (DASS for example).

  • Due Date:
    An additional date setting that should also be set.

  • Include this test in grade centre calculations:
    If you would like to include the grade for this work in a total column or a weighted total column, then click “YES”. Be aware that clicking “YES” will pull scores into appropriately set up weighted/total columns, so if you don’t want to accidentally release grade information to students, click “No” and sort this out later.

  • Show test results and feedback to students:
    This section enables you to set specific feedback release times for your students.

  • Test presentation:
    This allows you to create a long list of questions or complete the questions one at a time in an order.

  • Randomise Questions:
    Puts your questions into a random order. If your questions are dependent on being answered in order, please don’t tick this.

End of Training on Assessments

Further Training

The eLearning Team also provide training on the Blackboard Grade Centre, to allow you to process the marks from your assessments. Click the button to learn about the Grade Centre.