Assessment:
Testing in Bridges

Testing for Students (IMPORTANT)

• Have a stable internet connection (wired if possible)

• Use a laptop/desktop (do not use mobile devices for exams)

• Use one browser, Firefox or Chrome, and one page (do not open multiple browsers/ user multiple browsers)

• Use the built-in navigation (don't hit the back button)

• Pay attention to Test settings (Open, Close, Test time and ability to review and edit answers)

• Use a text editor to answer and copy/paste for longer form answers.

• Click submit buttons upon completion (do not navigate away from test until you see confirmation screen)

• Click SAVE OFTEN

• Contact Instructor and email id@rwu.edu immediately if you have issues during an exam.

Instructor Resources

Maintaining Academic Integrity

• Remind students of Academic Integrity before the exam, what cheating looks like on your exam and have them agree to the Honor Code before starting the assessment.

• Randomize questions and answers from a large pool of questions.

• Create questions that require higher order thinking (analyze, synthesize, evaluate) which are more difficult to look up quickly.

• Use different question types throughout the assessment that include open-ended questions.

• Use different exams for different subset of students.

• Edit publisher test bank questions (both terminology and amounts) as students can easily find those online.

• Delay releasing scores and feedback until everyone has taken the exam.

• Use SimCheck/Turnitin (antiplagiarism) for longer-form answers - make sure to tell students this will be used before the exam (Contact id@rwu.edu for assistance).

• Consider using authentic assessments to minimize cheating as "Students are also less likely to cheat when they are invited to demonstrate learning in ways that are most authentic to them ".

Helpful Sites:
Vanderbilt University: Writing Good Multiple Choice Test Questions
University of Waterloo: Designing Multiple-Choice Questions
Online Education and Authentic Assessment, Inside Higher Ed, By Douglas Harrison April 29, 2020
Are Your Assessments Helping Students Learn? How to Boost Retention and Discourage Cheating by Approaching Testing as a Learning Tool by Cindy Decker Raynak and Cheryl Farren Tkacs December 6, 2021

Alternatives to a final online exam/authentic assessments

Consider your learning goals, how students can demonstrate mastery and what you would like to assess (writing skills, speaking ability, analysis, course material).
Authentic assessments are iterative and based on complex real-life scenarios that require the students to apply a range of knowledge, skills and creativity to complete the task.

• Open-book, take-home assessments

• Multimedia projects

• Student presentations

• Series of quizzes to demonstrate mastery - this can also be set to 3 tries with the final score being an average of all three.

• Paper or Project aligned to real-life situations

• Fact sheets

• Annotated research bibliography with introduction

• Literature review or Executive summary

• Brochure/Advertisement

• Newspaper article/Editorial

Helpful Sites:
Lakeland University: 13 Alternatives to Traditional Testing
Indiana University Bloomington: Alternative to Traditional Exams and Papers

Helpful workshops:
Grade equity in Intro Bio at RWU: An Experiment in Mastery Grading Katie Mattaini (January 5th) (Slides)

After-Testing

• How do I view and grade student submissions? (video)

• How do I give the same score (e.g., 0) to all students with no submission for an assessment?

• How do I allow a re-take?

• A student has had trouble with the exam, how to I verify submission and Bridges access during that time?

  • Review the Tests & Quizzes event log for the exam.

  • Review the Statistics Tool to see student access for particular time/date.

• How do student see their score and exam feedback?

• How do I grade essay submissions off-line? (Note: for file upload questions you can download in bulk)

Additional Tips: Moving and Importing Tests/Quizzes

• How do I move a test from one course to the next? (Tip: only Drafts can be moved not published tests)

• How do I import a publisher testbank?

• When copying over sites from one semester to another only Drafts get moved over (Tip: do not delete drafts)