Getting started with tests

Tests in your Populi courses let you design, administrate, and grade tests and quizzes. Here's the quick overview:

1. First, you'll set up your test. This is where you'll specify the administrative details—availability, time limit, and proctoring, to name a few. These items are covered below.
2. Next step will be to design your test: adding headings, instructional text blocks, and, of course, questions.
   • You can accomplish these two steps by cloning or syncing tests from other courses.
3. Your students will take the test, after which time it's time to handle grading. Some grading can be done automatically, and some has to be done by you.
4. Finally, test grades are automatically entered in your course gradebook.

Proctoring and similar features

Tests include some features to help mitigate cheating. You can use any combination of these restrictions to hedge a student's access to any test:

• Proctoring requires that a third party enter a code in order for the student to access the test. There's also an integration with Proctorio, a proctoring service with some advanced features.
• IP Filtering requires students to take the test at a particular location (for example, your classroom).
• Test passwords require the student enter the correct password in order to access and take the test.

Creating a new test

To create a new test, you must create the corresponding assignment.

1. Go to your course and click the Assignments view.
2. Click add an assignment.
3. Enter the name, description, and other assignment details.
4. For the assignment type, choose Test. New fields will open up when you do this.
5. Points Calculation lets you determine how the total number of points will be distributed among the test's questions:
   • Fixed points: You manually distribute the test assignment's points while you design or edit the test.
   • Weight questions equally: As you add questions, the tests points will automatically be evenly distributed among all the questions.
   • Question points total: The test (and assignment) points will add up whatever points you assign to individual test questions.
6. Due date is the date by which students must take the test. If you wish, you can change the availability (see below) to permit students to take a test past the due date.
7. Availability is the timeframe during which students may take the test. Enter dates and times in the appropriate fields. Read about the four different availability options here.
8. Time limit is the total amount of time the student has to take the test within the availability window. A few notes on the time limit:
   • Availability trumps the time limit! If a student begins a test with no time limit ten minutes before the availability ends, that student has only ten minutes to take the test.
   • When students take the test, they can see how much time they have remaining. If they time out, unanswered questions will be marked incorrect.
   • If students are logged out in the middle of taking the test, they can resume where they left off with any unused time remaining (unless the availability window closes).
   • If need be, you can add an availability exception on a by-student basis.
9. Retakes give your students multiple chances to take the test.
   • The three options—highest score, most recent score, and average score—refer to which test score will be used as the grade.
   • The number of retakes is not the same as the number of times students can take the test. If you want to let your students take the test a total of 3 times, enter 2 in the retakes field.
10. Restrictions give you options for enforcing honest test-taking. Check the restrictions you wish to enforce:
    • Proctoring requires that every student take the test with a proctor. Your school may also have proctoring options with a third-party service available here.
    • Password requires that a password be entered before the student can take the test.
    • Filter IP addresses prevents students from taking the test unless their computer is located at the IP address you specify.
11. Finally, click Save.

Now that you've created the test, it appears in the assignment list and in the list under the Tests view. (The assignment will be in Draft mode until you publish it on the assignment's page in the Info section).

Next steps

In the Tests view, you'll find a list of all of the tests contained in this course. Click the test name to go to its page, where you can adjust its settings and start designing it.

If a test has not been set up yet, you'll see a notice next to the test's name. If a test has one of these notices, students will not be able to take it!

• No questions indicates that you have not yet added or imported any questions to that test.
• Unassigned points indicates that, while the test has questions, not all of the test's points have been distributed among those questions. This only shows for tests using fixed-points calculations.
  • You can fix this by editing the assignment/test's points, editing individual questions, or adding more questions to the test.
• Overassigned points indicates that the points given to the questions exceed the number of points in the test assignment. This only shows for tests using fixed-points calculations.
  • You can fix this by setting questions to Extra Credit, editing the assignment/test's points, or by deleting questions from the test.

Read more about your options for tests, including:

• Changing the test's default feedback settings.
• Requiring proctoring for the test.
• Adding exceptions for the test's availability, time limit, retake, and proctoring settings to accommodate special needs for specific students.

After setting up your test, it's time to start designing it.