Establish clear expectations to students before the exam.
Write or present exam instructions to the students that establish clear exam expectations, so they know:
- when the time window for taking the exam begins and when it ends
- whether or not the exam is timed
- whether of not the test is “closed book” or “open book”
- what scope and content is covered in the exam
- what types of questions (multiple choice, short answer, etc.) are used
- where students can seek help if they encounter technical difficulties
Dr. Shahbaz Gill’s video to students in his BADM 320 course above provides an example of how to prepare students for their exams by establishing clear expectations.
Ensure students’ DRES Accommodations have been applied to all assessments.
Instructors who receive formal Accommodation Letters can follow this process in Compass:
Enable settings that benefit students while keeping assessments secure.
Select settings that optimize functionality, grading consistency, and submission ease.
- In Compass2g, do not select “Force Submission”, but choose “Auto-Submit” instead, so students’ efforts will be submitted when their allotted time for the exam is over.
- For guidance and consistency in grading essay answers in large classes with more than one TA, consider adding rubrics. It’s also generally a good idea to have a meeting before the exam with TAs to discuss grading expectations.
- Consider adding feedback for True-False and Multiple Choice answers, which students can review after the test window has closed for the class.
Prevent cheating and plagiarism in your exams.
- Use SafeAssign on Assignments and inform students that their submissions will run through SafeAssign Report.
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- If you are able to hold a synchronous exam, do so, and monitor students via Zoom. TAs can also be assigned to monitor specific Zoom Breakrooms.
- Deliver questions in random order, using question sets in Compass.
- Randomize the letters for correct answers in Multiple Choice questions.
- Present test questions one at a time to discourage printing/taking screen shots.
- Delay giving feedback until the test time window is over for all students.
Annotated Webinar: Creating Assessments in Compass 2g
- What is an Individual Assignment in Compass, and can we see an example? (06:57)
- How do I create an Individual Assignment in Compass? (09:29)
- What is Safe Assign in an Assignment and how does it work? (13:44)
- Does the deadline/due date for Assignments stop student submission? (15:09)
- What are Group Assignments in Compass? (16:44)
- How do I create groups in Compass? (17:01)
- How do I create a Group Assignment in Compass? (21:29)
- How can I use the Test tool in Compass? (24:07)
- How (and why) do I create question Pools? (30:08)
- How do I create multiple choice questions? (34:03)
- Does Compass automatically grade assessments? (34:29)
- How do I import questions from McGraw-Hill? (36:48)
- How do I create Tests from question Pools? (42:45)
- How do I add random questions from a Pool into my test? (45:54)
- What does importing a Pool mean? (52:04)
- How do I share my questions with other instructors? (53:27)
- What can I do in the “Listing of Tests” view? (54:55)
- How do I deploy a Test? (55:17)
- Why should I never choose “Force Completion” as a Test setting? (58:28)
- What do I do if I have two separate sections to schedule? (103:17)
- What do you do when a student misses the exam for a legitimate reason? (104:33)
- After students submit their exams, what do they see? What feedback choices are there? (105:15)
- Is there a feature that would allow me to preview the Test experience itself? (109:25)
- What other forms of assessments are there? (114:16)
- How do I customize Adaptive Release for an individual student? (118:20)
More Resources
- Assessment Video Tutorials from eLearning
- Improving Your Test Questions
- University of Illinois Student Code Article 3, Part 2: Final Exams
