In Oncourse Tests & Surveys, how do I create a new assessment?

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Note: To complete these procedures, you must be assigned a role having the necessary permissions. To determine your role, follow the directions in Participant roles. To view a list of permissions associated with a given role, see Permissions, roles, and tools. For a basic understanding of roles and permissions, see Permissions and roles: Overview.

To create a new assessment (e.g., a test, quiz, or survey), in the menubar of the relevant site, click Tests & Surveys. From the Assessments page, you can create a new assessment from scratch or from a template. (For more about using templates, see Adding, editing, or deleting an Assessment Type.) You also can import an assessment; see Importing or exporting assessments.

There are four basic steps to creating a new assessment:

Name your assessment

In the "New Assessments" area:

In the "Create assessment (enter title)" field, enter a title for your assessment.
Select the method you would like to use to create your questions:
- Create using assessment builder (default): Allows you to create your assessment questions using a graphical user interface.
- Create using markup text: Allows you to create your assessment questions by typing appropriately formatted text. (See Formatting questions with markup text.)
If desired, you can select an Assessment Type using the Choose assessment type (optional) drop-down box. For more on Assessment Types, see Adding, editing, or deleting an Assessment Type.
Click Create. This will take you to the editing screen.

Note: If you chose Create using markup text above, you'll go directly to a screen that allows you to type or paste your questions; you won't be able to configure the settings or parts during the creation process. However, you can change the settings or parts from the default options afterward. To do so, see Modifying an existing assessment.

Configure the settings

The Settings link, available from the Assessments page or from the editing screen, allows you to specify various parameters for the assessment (e.g., delivery dates and security settings). Some settings may change the options you see when you create your questions in the assessment builder (for instance, you won't see the option to create selection-level feedback unless you've chosen to use it in the Feedback settings), so it's a good idea to configure settings before creating questions. For more information on the possible settings, see Assessment settings.

Note: You should not use the Immediate Feedback setting in Tests & Surveys when assessing learning, as it may provide information students can use to correct their answers before submitting a test.

Create parts

When you create a new assessment, a part (i.e., section) called "Default" is created automatically. If you leave it named "Default", that title will not appear on your assessment; to change the part's name, click Edit. You can begin adding questions immediately to "Default", or you can add your own parts.

To add a part to your assessment:

On the editing screen, click Add Part.
On the part editing screen, next to "Title", type a name for this part.
Under "Information", you can use the rich-text editor to enter a brief description or instructions.
To add attachments, click Add Attachments.
Under "Type", use the radio buttons to indicate whether you'll be authoring questions one by one, or using a random draw from one of your question pools. For the latter option, use the drop-down list to choose the name of the pool from which to draw them, and use the accompanying text boxes to indicate the number and point value of questions. Use the radio buttons to indicate the type of randomization.
Under "Question ordering", use the radio buttons to either dictate the order of questions, or allow a random ordering within the part.
Under "Metadata", you may use the text boxes to record any objectives, keywords, or rubrics.
To save your changes, click Save. To cancel them, click Cancel.

New parts will be listed in the order you create them. To switch the order of two parts, before a part's name, change the number in the drop-down list next to "Part". For example, if you have three parts, and you want the third part to appear first, use the drop-down list to change the 3 to 1. The third part will become the first part and the first part will become the third.

To edit the name and any of the information and settings associated with a part, next to that part's name, click Edit.

Your assessment must contain at least one part, but you can remove any of the parts you create. You can also remove the "Default" part, as long as you've already created another part to replace it.

To remove a part:

Note: The first part listed on the editing screen will not have the Remove option. To remove the first part, you must switch its order with another part (if you don't have another part, you'll have to create one), and then click Remove.

Next to the part's name, click Remove.
On the subsequent confirmation screen, choose between the following:
- Remove part and all questions
- Remove part only and move question(s) to (use the accompanying drop-down list to choose another part)
Click Remove.

Create questions

If you chose Create using markup text earlier, see Formatting questions with markup text. If you chose Create using assessment builder, see below.

You can either create a new question to add to the assessment, or you can add a question from a question pool. To add your first question, first create an assessment, and then from the drop-down menu next to "Add Question:", choose the type of question to add. For more on question types, see Creating questions for an assessment. Once you've selected the type of question, the question editing screen will open.

To add a question from a question pool, from the drop-down menu next to "Add Question", select Copy from Question Pool.

On the question editing screen, the available options will depend upon the type of question you are adding. To change the type of question, choose another option from the "Change Question Type" drop-down menu. Options common to most question types include:

Answer Point Value: Specify the point value for each response in a question, or specify 0 (zero) for a survey or ungraded question.
Note: The total points you assign will be divided among all the blanks in the question. For example, take the following question:
Polonius advises Laertes: "Neither a {borrower} nor a {lender} be".
If you assign 10 points to this question, students will get 5 points each for filling in "borrower" and "lender".
Question Text: State the actual question to be asked.
Answer: Indicate the correct answer or answers. You have the option to include feedback for specific responses (selection-level feedback).
Assign to Part: If you have created your own parts, you may assign a question to any of those parts; otherwise, it will be assigned to the default part.
Assign to Question Pool: Add this question to a question pool that you've created. For information about question pools, see Adding, editing, moving, copying, or removing a question pool or subpool.
Feedback (optional): Provide feedback for a correct or incorrect response to the question (question-level feedback).
Save: Click Save to add the question to your assessment or to save any changes to the question.
Cancel: Click Cancel to abort the question or changes and return to the editing screen.

After you insert a question into your new assessment, a drop-down list, Insert New Question, will appear in the assessment editing screen at the end of each part. Use this option to add a question directly to a specific part. Near the top, clicking Preview allows you to preview the assessment as it presently stands. After you've saved questions within your assessment, you can use the corresponding Edit and Remove buttons to alter or delete questions.

Note: Oncourse sessions time out (i.e., end automatically) after three hours without certain actions. Depending on the task you're performing, this could cause you to lose your work; see Can I lose my work if Oncourse times out?

Feature demonstrations

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Tests & Surveys, Creating a new assessment

This is document ardm in domains all, oncoursecl, sakai-all, and sakaiht.
Last modified on May 16, 2013.